Darlington Collection

William Darlington was an attorney from Pittsburgh and spent much of his life collecting maps, books, magazines, and manuscripts.

[3][1] Both William and Mary researched and published about the French and Indian War and to the history of Western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley thereby acquiring a large amount of material on the subjects.

[2] From 1936 to 2009, the collection was housed in special library space on the sixth floor of the main building of the university, the Cathedral of Learning.

[6] This space was constructed and furnished with antiques that were bequeathed to the university by the Darlington family, and features moldings and green walls that are duplicated from the 18th mansion Graeme Park, a Pennsylvania colonial-era governor's residence.

[7] The library was entered through a memorial vestibule and consisted of a central room with eight alcoves and contained, among other notable furnishings, a wrought iron entrance gate by Samuel Yellin.

O'Hara Darlington also contributed his collections of Victorian literature, sporting books, and works of illustrators and caricaturists.

[4] Since the Darlington's donation, the collection has been added to through gifts by other individuals and organizations, particularly its content on the history of Western Pennsylvania.

Darlington collected personal letters authored by General James O'Hara to his wife and contemporaries that describe the conditions of Fort Pitt in the 1790s.

These maps were part of a June 12, 2015 exhibition at Hillman Library conducted to commemorate the 200th anniversary of William Darlington's birth on May 1, 1815.