1. William Darlington was an American physician, botanist, and politician who served as a Democratic-Republican member of the US House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 2nd congressional district from 1819 to 1823.
15 Facts About William Darlington
1. 2.
William Darlington was born in Birmingham, Chester County, Pennsylvania.
3.
William Darlington attended the Friends School at Birmingham and spent his youth on a farm.
4.
William Darlington became a botanist at an early age, studied medicine, and graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1804.
5.
William Darlington went to the East Indies as ship's surgeon in 1806.
6.
William Darlington returned to West Chester, near Birmingham, in 1807 and was a practicing physician there for a number of years.
7.
William Darlington raised a company of volunteers at the beginning of the War of 1812 and served as major of a volunteer regiment.
8.
William Darlington was again elected to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Congresses.
9.
William Darlington was appointed canal commissioner in 1825, and served as the first president of the West Chester Railroad from 1831 to 1835.
10.
William Darlington practiced law in West Chester in partnership with Robert Cornwell from 1868 to 1878.
11.
In 1823, William Darlington was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
12.
William Darlington established a natural history society in West Chester in 1826 and published several works on botany and natural history.
13.
William Darlington's published works include Mutual Influence of Habits and Disease, Flora cestrica: an attempt to enumerate and describe the flowering and filicoid plants of Chester County in the state of Pennsylvania and Agricultural Botany.
14.
William Darlington served as director and president of the National Bank of Chester County from 1830 to 1863, where his friend and fellow botanist David Townsend was chief cashier.
15.
William Darlington died in West Chester in 1863, and was interred in Oaklands Cemetery.