author
Richard Darlington
1834–1906
A Pennsylvania educator and local historian, he is best remembered for a vivid firsthand-era account of the devastating 1877 tornado in Chester County. His work preserves both the drama of the storm and the details of the community it struck.
1 Audiobook
A Full Description of the Great Tornado in Chester County, Pa.
by Richard Darlington
About the author
Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1834, Richard Darlington Jr. belonged to a well-known Quaker family rooted in the region. He was closely connected with Ercildoun Seminary, the school run by the Darlington family, and spent much of his life in the educational and civic world of Chester County.
He is chiefly known as the author of A Full Description of the Great Tornado in Chester County, Pa., published in 1877. The book offers a detailed contemporary record of the tornado that damaged the seminary and surrounding area, making it valuable both as local history and as a vivid account of a natural disaster.
Darlington died in West Chester in 1906. Though not a widely known literary figure, his writing remains of lasting interest for readers drawn to regional history, eyewitness-style reporting, and nineteenth-century Pennsylvania life.