William Cornell Darling
William Cornell Darling was born in New York in September or October 1830. His family called him Cornell, and the 1870 census wrote him under that name. Darling was an old name in the town of Smithtown on Long Island. He was the eldest known son of Walter Darling and Eliza Hawkins, and a grandson of George Darling, whose farm lay on the west bank of the Nissequogue River.
In 1850 he was 18 and living at Smithtown in his father's house, with his brother Edgar, his sister Lydia and Lydia Hawkins, 58, who was probably his grandmother. In the summer of 1855 the family was at New Lots in Kings County, and William C., 23, was still at home and unmarried.
About 1856 he married Percillia Cornelia White, a girl from Riverhead who had grown up as a ward in another family's house. They lived in Smithtown and had eleven children between about 1856 and 1879. Allen F. came first, then Franklin, Ida Augusta in 1860, Ella Jane, Isadora, Adelia, Leonard, Sherman, Mary Alice, Harry Smith and Lillian Grace.
In 1860 the census found Willm C. Darling, 28, in the town of Smithtown with Cornelia P., 23, and the children Allen F., 4, Franklin, 2, and the baby Ida A. In 1865 the state census listed William C. and Percilla C. with Allen F., Franklin, Ella J., Isadorah and Ida. In 1870 Cornell and Cornelia had seven children at home. In 1880 W. Cornell Darling, 49, was head of the household at Smithtown and gave his work as sailor. His wife and eight children were at home. Thirty years later, in 1900, William C. Darling, born October 1830, was living in the second election district of Smithtown with his wife Priscilla. He was then seventy.
In 1910 he was not on Long Island. A family researcher found him boarding with a family at Grafton, Virginia, on the Chesapeake, working as a watchman at an oyster dock. Long Island oystermen often worked the Chesapeake beds in winter. He died on 29 November 1911 in Manhattan. New York Episcopal records place his death at the hospital for the poor on Blackwell's Island, the island in the East River now called Roosevelt Island. His burial place is not known.
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Cite: Heirology, "William Cornell Darling (1830-1911)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/william-cornell-darling-1830-1911-4cbdd8.