Business supervised, 1901-1926

Contents: Letters, financial and legal documents.

This subseries, like those titled Personal business and Personal finance, is primarily focused on Saulsbury's business ventures. However, for Saulsbury, there were many connections between the personal, business, legal, and political aspects of his life. The files in this subseries are generally concerned with long-term business projects which were supervised and followed closely by Saulsbury in terms of their performance and the business and legal issues raised, but managed on a day-to-day basis by others.

These files reflect a variety of aspects of Saulsbury's business activities. The Cellulose Products Co. represents Saulsbury's efforts to gain control of an investment. The Delawarean was an investment made for personal satisfaction as much as for profit. The Du Pont files deal with Saulsbury’s efforts to protect and maintain his wife's interests. Finally, the Pusey and Jones files deal with the bankruptcy of a company in which Saulsbury was invested.

Due to the centrality of patent ownership in the Cellulose Products Co. business, Saulsbury employed his legal knowledge to act not only as investor but also as legal advisor. The files related to this company document Saulsbury's increasing involvement in this regard. The information in these files may be representative of the way his business dealings sometimes became involved with other aspects of his life.

Although records relating to Saulsbury's newspaper, The Delawarean, can also be found in the Personal

finance subseries, the files present here are specifically related to Saulsbury's efforts to revive the paper, which had lapsed during his years in the Senate. Unfortunately, the paper continued to lose money into the 1920s when Saulsbury arranged to merge it with the State Sentinel. The details of that merger are located in the files of the Capital Printing Co. in the Personal finance subseries.

Another subset of material relates to the Du Pont Company. Saulsbury's wife, born Mary du Pont, had inherited an interest in the Du Pont Company. When the Company was reorganized in the early part of this century (which apparently involved its purchase by a holding company run by the du Pont family), all those holding a share of the family interest, including May Saulsbury, were compensated. These files contain documents which detail the effort over a great many years to reach an acceptable settlement. The importance of the issue is exhibited by the fact that much of May and Willard's correspondence is with the president (T. C. du Pont) or the treasurer (Pierre S. du Pont) of the company.

Finally, the Pusey and Jones Co. files deal with the protracted settlement of claims against this company, which, upon its inability to honor its debts, was placed into receivership. Saulsbury was involved both as an investor and with settling the company's debts. Initially, a solution was sought which would have allowed the company to continue operation, but eventually its assets were ordered sold by the courts.