Hagley Museum & Library

Wilmington, United States

4.4

16 reviews

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Telephone:
+1 302-658-2400
Website:
www.hagley.org
Address:
200 Hagley Rd, Wilmington, DE, 19807
Nearby public transportation stops & stations:
2.9 miWilmington
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Local time (Wilmington) 08:14 Thursday, 12 June 2025

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Description

Specialties

Tours, Walking Tours, Family Programs and Events, Exhibitions, Lifelong Learning, Education, Research Seminars, Author Talks, Homeschool Programs, Facility Rentals, Café, Gift Shop

History

Established in 1957.

Hagley Museum is the former industrial site of the original black powder works of the DuPont Company, founded in Delaware in 1802 and powered by the natural resources that surrounded it. Today it is 235 acres of wooded rolling hills along the rushing Brandywine River dotted with hundreds of stone ruins of the black powder industry, dozens of restored buildings associated with the business, and the original ancestral home and gardens of the du Pont family in America. Here, for more than two hundred years, the DuPont Company and family experimented, innovated, and pursued the American dream.

Hagley, a Let’s Move! museum, provides many opportunities for guests to be active and get healthy. We are the only Smithsonian Affiliate museum in Delaware and have been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums since 1972. The site is a National Historic Landmark, a National Recreation Trail, and a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark.

The Hagley Library is the world’s premier research li

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Nearby

Near this location:
230
ft
True Value Hardware
Powder Mill Sq
630
ft
Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation
201 Hagley Creek Road
1
mi
Inn At Montchanin Village
RR 100
1
mi
Milkmaid Press
1
mi
Flowers Online
1
mi
Fredda Pennock Interior Design

16 reviews of Hagley Museum & Library

No registration required
Place rating: 4
Forest Hills, NY
I was fortunate to receive two 2015 Brandywine Treasure Trail Passport tickets which gives you access to 11 amazing attractions throughout Wilmington and the Brandywine Valley’s top attractions and this was one of them. The Brandywine Treasure Trail Passport was valid from May 23, 2015 through September 7, 2015 and couldn’t be used during special events. We had no issues using them at the admission office and just waited for our passport stamp which was cool.
We visited this museum and mini mansion at the beginning of a very hot and humid day. We thought since the house was smaller our tour would be shorter, wrong! I would’ve preferred a self tour so we could skip through what we didn’t want to see. Nevertheless the experience was cool. The house was simple and its furnishing were basic household items you would see in our homes which was refreshing. We really enjoyed the grounds of the museum where the owners wanted a ruin like look and they were successful. We had a tour of how hey made gunpowder and one of the staff actually made the powder so we could hear the explosion which was very loud. They had a café on the grounds and the place is so huge they have mini shuttle buses that can take you from one area to the next which was great during those hot and hazy days, This is definitely a place to check out if you’re in the area.
Place rating: 5
Williamstown, NJ
My mother and I walked around on a Monday. It was so nice and calming and each building had it’s own little setup to look at. The examples were great and we had so much fun. Everyone was very friendly and informative.
Place rating: 4
Egg Harbor Township, NJ
We were in the area, and found this gem. It was a little difficult to get to, tricky turns… and we ended up at the library which is the wrong entrance. Glad we were persistent! This is a very interesting and wonderful place to hang out. The tour of the house and barn were awesome, very informed tour guides that did not RUSH us. The home is beautiful and you can walk through almost all of it. We really enjoyed having lunch there, the best home made tortellini I have ever eaten… and we bought out the remaining supply of brownies (yeah they were that good). Everyone was pleasant and helpful. Definitely going back again.
Place rating: 5
Potomac, MD
Very interesting. Extremely well preserved. Like an industrial Williamsburg with more original stuff. The tour guides and docents really knew their stuff. They were all very well versed on their subject. The tour lays out how they made gunpowder in the 1800’s. You also see how owner, management and workers all lived. Truly fascinating and well worth your vacation time.
Place rating: 5
Bethesda, MD
I have been a lifelong lover of Hagley and used to come here pretty much every year as a child for school field trips. I hadn’t been here in 20+ years, but I definitely remembered writing with a quill pen in the schoolhouse and seeing how they cook and do laundry in the Gibbons house. They had some new exhibits, like the Dupont products exhibit on the third floor of the visitors center, where you can put your face in an astronaut’s suit (AWESOME!) and learn everything you ever wanted to know about Lycra, Kevlar, Nylon, etc. The grounds are so beautiful, it’s lovely to take a stroll around, next to the Brandywine River. They hold weddings and other receptions in the Soda House – that sounds like such a beautiful place to hold such an event!
Place rating: 4
Middletown, DE
I visited the museum with a first grade class for a field trip. The grounds are beautiful. The children enjoyed learning about colonial times. The activities for the children were hands-​on and very interesting. I would recommend this museum for anyone who is interested in learning about history. A great treasure in Delaware.
Place rating: 3
Newark, DE
The grounds are beautiful at the Hagley, but gunpowder does not interest me. I was happy enough just to walk along the Brandywine river. If you are interested in the history of Dupont, then it’s great. Just not my thing.
Place rating: 5
Marcus Hook, PA
I had a great afternoon with my family here. Even my boys, 8 and 6 really enjoyed themselves. The setting is quiet and surrounded by nature but the buildings are filled with history. I cannot wait to return during different seasons with my camera! I am sure the trees and garden will be beautiful during spring, summer, and early fall!
Place rating: 4
Westmont, IL
9÷1÷2013
Nice place for a visit. Gunpowder, the making of, is what made this place what it is, and what made the DuPont family at the time. There is an excellent museum, interesting powder demonstrations, machine shop demonstrations, and steam engine demonstrations. A bus transports you up to the Eleutherian Mills, the DuPont home, which actually is quite a good house tour. It is surprising that the family lived a more down-​to-​earth lifestyle than many other rich people did in their mega-​mansions.
Walking along the river, exploring the mills is quite enjoyable. There is quite a lot to see. One fault I find with the property is that it would be nice to have viewing access to some of the roadside areas closed to pedestrians, mainly along the road to the house.
Also found on the property is the Belin House Organic Café. It is a restaurant with good food, a mix of self-​serve and heated sandwiches/​meals. Good crabcakes, fries and BBQ pulled pork. The prices are reasonable and not overly high as one would find at other museums.
Place rating: 5
Shelton, CT
I was a lifelong Delawarean before my recent move and I visited this museum a few times as a guest and I also worked in the research library as an intern for the summer. I loved Hagley. The grounds are absolutely beautiful and I enjoyed walking along the paths through the ruins of the old powder mill. The Brandywine River runs right through the property and is an integral part of the history of the DuPont company as well as for the entire state and region.
The museum is very well done and have new and interesting exhibits every once in awhile. The real treasure is the library which has amazing collections which documents the history of business enterprise in American. The facilities in which all of these documents and manuscripts are stored are also amazing examples of adaptive reuse.
I can not recommend visiting Hagley enough if you are in the area or you are a Delawarean looking for something to do on the weekend. Even if you aren’t very interested in history, the grounds are very much worth walking around for their natural beauty.
Place rating: 4
San Francisco, CA
This is a pretty interesting museum! For $ 14, I got my hours filled with nature and history. It’s definitely a very nice and relaxing place to be too – the Brandy Wine River was amazingly calm and beautiful! I was lucky that when I went, there were any people so it was really beautiful and peaceful. I like how you can walk or take the bus provided. The guided tour was very informative and the staffs were pretty knowledgeable.
Place rating: 5
River Vale, NJ
Lovely museum on a historic piece of property.
I was actually there for the art show — which was run quite well.
Place rating: 4
Oakton, VA
A fun stop on a road trip. We swung through Delaware upon driving from PA to DC. We happened to be there for Dollar Day which means that we paid a dollar each to get in and they had some dollar specials in the organic café as well.
A bus takes you between all of the stops. The house has some amazing decorative arts particularly ceramics. I wish the other areas like the barn had more information about the weather vanes and horse-​drawn carts.
We didn’t eat at the café but it had a nice, casual vibe.
The gardens weren’t too impressive since it is winter, but it was nice to walk through the woods on the way back. Be sure to get out and see the Steam Engine Demonstration. The kids (and my husband) seemed to love it.
There are some good things for kids here, but the ones who were in our group as we toured the house lost interest quickly and left halfway through. It centers on decorative arts and the history of the DuPont company which may not interest many kids.
Place rating: 5
Hamden, CT
Being in Delaware, I had no choice than visit a Dupont museum. This was an excellent choice, a real value for only $ 11. The tour guides were very informative & enthusiastic about their topic. This site was a gunpowder factory that grew to the point of being the biggest gunpowder manufacturer in the US. It i fascinating how much long term preparation & risk went into establishing this enterprise. Some of the Duponts actually lived on site as did their workers. This was essentially a small company town. The setting is idyllic, much cleaner & greener than when the place was actually in use. I would recommend it if you are in the Wilmington area with an afternoon or even a whole day to spend. We were there 4 hours and would have probably spent another 2 hours if it hadnt been raining.
Place rating: 4
Media, PA
Might very well be a five star place — but I have not seen enough of it yet.
We visited today (and did NOT have enough time to explore it all).
The grounds are just wonderful — and post Hurricane Irene with the normally meandering Brandywine River now a raging mass of muddy water — WOW!
We saw a great blue Heron and a couple of Cormorants, too.
Can’t wait to go back and actually take the tour.
Place rating: 5
Delaware, PA
We just recently joined and made a couple visits but still have not seen all that the Hagley has to offer. The DuPont company was and still is a great example of American entrepreneurship and this museum offers a glimpse of how French immigrants came across the Atlantic and helped make America great.
Ok, enough platitudes. The Hagley is a great place to take the kids with plenty of outdoor activities and demonstrations (the gunpowder demonstration is my fave!). You can’t do it all in one day.
Again, we haven’t explored all there is but by being members, we are eligible to attend the classic car show and the Independence Day fireworks, both of which are considered the best in the region. I’m also looking forward to seeing it decorated at Christmas time.