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William Darlington (April 28, 1782 - April 23, 1863) was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

William Darlington (cousin of Edward Darlington and Isaac Darlington, second cousin of Smedley Darlington) was born in Birmingham, Pennsylvania. He attended Friends School at Birmingham and spent his youth on a farm. He became a botanist at an early age, studied medicine, and graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1804. He went to the East Indies as ship’s surgeon in 1806. He returned to West Chester in 1807 and was a practicing physician there for a number of years. He raised a company of volunteers at the beginning of the War of 1812 and was major of a volunteer regiment.

Darlington was elected as a Republican to the Fourteenth Congress. He was again elected to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Congresses. He was appointed canal commissioner in 1825, and served as president of the West Chester Railroad. He established a natural history society in West Chester in 1826 and published several works on botany and natural history. He served as director and president of the National Bank of Chester County from 1830 to 1863. He died in West Chester in 1863, and was interred in Oakland Cemetery.

Bibliography

Lansing, Dorothy I. That Magnificent Cestrian: Dr. William Darlington, 1782-1863, Being a Short Introductory Biography. Paoli, Pennsylvania: Serpentine Press, 1985.

Sources

• United States Congress. "William Darlington (id: D000059)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• The Political Graveyard

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