John P. Darling
American politician

John P. Darling (February 25, 1815 in Berkshire County, Massachusetts – June 17, 1882) was an American politician from New York.
Life
He was the son of Rufus Darling (1781–1828), a farmer, and Prudy (Lee) Darling (1787–1873). The family removed in 1818 to Lenox, Madison County, New York, and in 1824 to Cattaraugus County. After the death of his father, John worked as a raftsman on the Allegany River, a cutter of cord wood, a farm-hand, and a clerk in a dry-goods store in Waverly. In 1838, he became a merchant. In the same year, he married Abiah Strickland (b. 1813), and they had two daughters.
Darling entered politics as a Whig, joined the American Party for a short time, and finally the Republican Party in 1856.
He was Clerk of the Town of Otto for several terms beginning in 1837. He was Supervisor of the Town of Otto for several terms, first in 1845.
“John P. Darling” enters the record as american politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what John, Darling and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“John P. Darling” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, John, Darling and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6251545. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1815, 1882, 1781 and 1828.
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This entry incorporates text from “John P. Darling” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.