History of Birmingham, (Chester County) Pennsylvania United States of America

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William Darlington, representative, was born in Birmingham, Pa., April 28, 1782; son of Edward and Hannah (Townsend) Darlington; grandson of Thomas and Hannah (Brinton) Darlington and of John Townsend; and great-grandson of Abraham and Elizabeth (Hillborn) Darlington Abraham, the son of Job and Mary Darlington of Darnall, Cheshire, England, came to Pennsylvania with his brother John at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The Darlingtons, as far back as can be traced, were Quakers. William was graduated in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1804 and studied botany and languages for two years. In 1805 he was appointed physician to the Chester county almshouse and surgeon to a regiment of militia. The latter appointment caused his disownment by the Society of Friends. He went to India in 1806-07 as a ship's surgeon and on his return to the United States practised medicine in West Chester. On June 1, 1808, he was married to Catharine, daughter of Gen. John Lacey of New Jersey, who had served in the Revolutionary war. In 1811 he was made a trustee and secretary of the newly established West Chester academy. In 1812 he defended the policy of President Madison, assisted in raising a company of volunteers and was major of the first battalion of the regiment in which his company was incorporated. In 1814 he helped to establish and was made a trustee of the bank of Chester county, and became its president in 1830. In 1814, when the British occupied Washington city, he joined a volunteer regiment as major. He was a representative in the 14th, 15th and 17th congresses, 1815-19 and 1821-23, and served on several important committees. He was canal commissioner in 1825 and in 1826 helped to form the West Chester natural history society, of which he was elected the first president. He was a member of more than forty literary and scientific associations of Europe and America, including the American philosophical society. He was honored in England, Switzerland and America by botanists who gave his name to rare plants. He received the degree of LL.D. from Yale in 1848 and that of Ph. D, from Dickinson in 1855. He published: Mutual Influence of Habits and Disease (1804); wrote Letters from Calcutta published in the Analectic Magazine (1807); made a descriptive catalogue of the plants growing about West Chester published as Florula Cestrica (1826); and an enlarged edition including the plants of the entire county as Flora Cestrica (1837, new ed., 1853); edited the correspondence of his friend, Dr. William Baldwin, with a memoir, as Relinqui? Baldwiniana (1843); and published Agricultural Botany (1847) and Not? Cestrienses (with J. Smith Futhy, 1863). He died in West Chester, Pa., April 23, 1863.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Birmingham, (Chester County) Pennsylvania

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