134 THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



WILLIAM DARLINGTON. 



William Darlington * was born near the ancient 

 village of Dilworth, now called Dilworthstown, in Birming- 

 ham township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, April 28, 

 1782. 



His great grandfather, Abraham Darlington, the son of 

 Job and Mary Darlington, of Darnhall, in Cheshire, Eng- 

 land, came, whilst a young man, with his brother, John, to 

 Pennsylvania, in the beginning of the last century, and 

 settled, at first, near Chester. He soon, however, removed 

 to the banks of the Brandywine, about a mile and a half 

 above Chadd's Ford, in Birmingham township, where he 

 remained till his death in 1776. The grandfather of 

 William Darlington, Thomas Darlington, was a farmer, and 

 his son Edward, father of William, was educated a farmer 

 by his maternal grandfather, from whom he received, by 

 will, the farm in Birmingham township, on which he 

 was reared. He married Hannah, a daughter of John 

 Townsend, of East Bradford, Chester County, by whom he 

 had five sons and two daughters. He was an intelligent 

 man, self-educated, and exercised a considerable influence 

 amongst the citizens of his county, by whom he was several 

 times elected a member of the State Legislature. He died 

 in 1825. His eldest son, William, was early inured to the 

 severe labors of agricultural life, and when old enough to 

 drive or hold the plough, was kept at work in the summer, 

 and only permitted to go to school in the winter season. 

 The common schools of that day were lamentably deficient 

 as compared with those of modern times, yet he succeeded 

 in obtaining a plain English education, under John 



* Memorialof William Darlington, by W. T., printed at West Chester in 1863. 

 Also see The Gardener' s Monthly (Meehan), V, pp. 157, 168, 182, with portrait. 



