Background

Darlington was born on April 28, 1782 at Birmingham, Pennsylvania, the son of Edward and Hannah (Townsend) Darlington. His early life was that of the hardy farm boy, and like John Bartram, his great neighbor of an earlier generation, he was observant at his plow of every weed and sapling.

Education

Darlington's early education was obtained under John Forsythe, one of the best teachers in the locality, and later he studied medicine under Dr. John Vaughan of Wilmington, Delaware, United States.

In 1804 he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania where he received splendid training in medical botany from Dr. B. S. Barton.

Career

Darlington volunteered in the War of 1812. He was thrice elected representative to Congress from West Chester, organized the Bank of Chester Country, and served as its president for thirty-three years. At the same time he was successfully practicing medicine - he was an advocate of strong purgatives and copious bleeding - but botany always dominated his life. His Florula Cestrica (1826), the enlarged Flora Cestrica (1837), and two books for the farmer, Agricultural Botany (1847) and American Weeds and Useful Plants (1859), are all readable, often animated books with a strong historic emphasis. Acknowledged the most valued compendium on early American botany is his Memorials of John Bartram and Humphry Marshall (1849). His Reliquiae Baldwinianae (1843) contains materials on William Baldwin and his contemporaries based on personal acquaintance and unpublished documents.

Darlington was a long-time confidant of Asa Gray; and his voluminous correspondence documents the growth of American botany, including as it does foreign and domestic botanists, both amateur and professional. His antiquarian sympathies saved Rafinesque specimens that another botanist might have discarded. That his works were valued by his contemporaries is witnessed by two honorary degrees, from Yale University (LL. D., 1848) and Dickinson College (Sc. D., 1856). Darlington was something of a classicist: His bookplate reads “Miseris succurrere Disco,” and his tombstone in Oaklands Cemetery, West Chester, bears a Latin inscription he composed.

Achievements

• Darlington has been listed as a noteworthy botanist and congressman. He is best known as a Democratic-Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 2nd congressional district from 1819 to 1823.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Discourse Upon Agriculture 1847
  • American weeds and useful plants
  • Flora Cestrica
  • Agricultural Botany

Personality

Darlington's fresh enthusiasm for his subject, his wide correspondence and friendship with naturalists throughout the country, made him a personal force and inspiration in his day. In his old age he was called by Asa Gray, ‘'the Nestor of American botany,” and there is no doubt that if he was not precisely the leader of American botany at any time, he enjoyed a position of unusual respect and affection.

Connections

In June 1808, Darlington married Catherine, daughter of General John Lacey of New Jersey. Together, they had 6 children.

Father:

Edward Darlington

Mother:

Hannah Townsend

Spouse:

Catherine Lacey

Son:

John Lacey Darlington

Son:

Benjamin Smith Barton Darlington

Daughter:

Jane Evans

Son:

Edward Darlington

Daughter:

Sarah Painter Darlington

Daughter:

Katherine Lacey Parsons

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography Volume 3
  1971
• Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography
  2013