The Ancestry of Linus Pauling (The Darlings)

About 1660

Dennis Darling (1640-1715) and his brother John arrive in Massachusetts Bay Colony and settle on a farm in Braintree, south of Boston. According to family records, these brothers are the first American ancestors of the family of Linus Pauling’s mother.

1750

The birth date of John R. Darling (1750-1848), Linus Pauling’s great-great-great grandfather, the first Darling for whom certain information exists. He is a farmer in Dutchess County, New York. In politics, he is a Tory and staunchly loyal to King George III.

1776

Upon the outbreak of the American Revolution, John Darling moves to Canada, where he sets up a farm in the Bay Quinte region of Ontario. Here he marries and remains until he dies at age 98. Here, too, his son William Darling (1800-1872) marries, and he and his wife, the former Jane Duell, have eight children, all born "in Bay Quinte on the old homestead." One of these children is William Allen Darling (1826-1900), Linus Pauling’s great grandfather.

1850

William Allen Darling marries Maria Mahee (1833-1867) at Cannington, Ontario. During the next decade six children are born, four boys and two girls, and from their places of birth (Cannington, Lindsay, and Beaverton), it is clear that the family moves often in the area east of Lake Simcoe.

1860

The Darling family moves to Collingwood, Ontario, a town on Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, where their last child, a girl, is born.

1863

William Allen Darling leaves his family in Collingwood and goes to Chicago, Illinois "to better his condition." In the fall, he joins the Union Army and fights in the Civil War. He stops writing letters to Maria and his children, and a report reaches her that her husband has been killed. (This report is erroneous, for William Allen Darling lives for 35 years after the war’s end; he seems to have made no effort to return to his wife, settling instead in Tawas City, Michigan, where, in 1867, he marries Lucy Little—a bigamous marriage, since his first wife is still alive.)

1864

Maria Darling, suffering great financial distress, splits up her family by sending the four older children to foster homes and keeping the two youngest girls with her.

1867

In trying to discharge her duties to her two small girls, Maria Darling ruins her already-weakened health, and on November 29, she dies. Thus, even the remnant of her family is destroyed, and foster homes have to be found for her two daughters.

1870

William Allen Darling, Jr. meets his father, William Allen Darling, Sr., in Tawas City (both father and son eventually move to the American Northwest).

In the winter of 1870-1871, Linus Wilson Darling, the fifteen-year old son of William Allen Darling, Sr. (and the maternal grandfather of Linus Pauling) is, unknown to his father or brother, in Chicago, where he works for a baker during the day and spends the nights in one of the bakery’s big barrels (he had run away from his foster parents in New Jersey and had spent time driving mules on the Erie Canal, before ending up in Chicago).

1871-1873

Linus Wilson Darling leaves Chicago and wanders across the Great Plains and into the Northwest, eventually settling in Pendleton, a small town in northeastern Oregon on the Umatilla River. His stay is short, and he moves to western Oregon, where he teaches school in Marion County.

1878

Linus Wilson Darling marries one of his students, Alcy Delilah Neal, in Salem, Oregon. She is the youngest daughter of the first marriage of Calvin Neal (1824-1891), an important Oregon pioneer. Linus and Alcy Darling remain near Calvin Neal in West Stayton, Oregon for the first two years of their marriage.

1880

Linus Wilson Darling moves his wife and daughter Goldie to Lonerock, a small town in eastern Oregon at the bottom of a deep valley (the town got its name from a huge, isolated rock on the floor of the valley). Linus Darling opens a drugstore.

1881

On April 13, Lucy Isabelle Darling (who would become Linus Pauling’s mother) is born.

1885

Linus Wilson Darling moves his family, which now includes four daughters, to Condon, where he establishes a general merchandise store.

1888

Alcy Delilah Darling dies at the family ranch in Darling Canyon, leaving her four daughters to be raised by her husband.

1894

Linus Wilson Darling marries a young widow, Lucy Seekamp.

1899

Belle Darling meets Herman Pauling in Condon, and after his return to Portland, they begin to exchange letters. Through these letters Herman successfully pursues his courtship of Belle.

1900

On May 27, Herman Pauling marries Belle Darling in Condon, Oregon. Even though Herman is a Lutheran, the marriage is performed in the First Congregational Church, since Belle is a Congregationalist.

Table of Contents

1. The Ancestry of Linus Pauling (The Paulings)
2. The Ancestry of Linus Pauling (The Darlings)
3. Linus Pauling's Childhood (1901-1910)
4. Linus Pauling's Adolescence (1910-1917)
5. Pauling's Years as an Undergraduate at Oregon Agricultural College, Part 1 (1917-1919)
6. Pauling's Years as an Undergraduate at Oregon Agricultural College, Part 2 (1919-1922)
7. Linus Pauling as a Graduate and Postdoctoral Student at the California Institute of Technology, Part 1 (1922-1923)
8. Linus Pauling as a Graduate and Postdoctoral Student at the California Institute of Technology, Part 2 (1924-1926)
9. A Guggenheim Fellow in Europe during the Golden Years of Physics (1926-1927)
10. Early Career at the California Institute of Technology (1927-1930)
11. Pauling's Great Years of Achievement in Structural Chemistry, Part 1 (1931-1932)
12. Pauling's Great Years of Achievement in Structural Chemistry, Part 2 (1933-1935)
13. Pauling's Increasing Involvement in Molecular Biology (1936-1939)
14. The War Years, Part 1 (1940-1942)
15. The War Years, Part 2 (1943-1945)
16. The Postwar Years, Part 1 (1946-1947)
17. The Postwar Years, Part 2 (1948-1949)
18. Proteins, Passports, and the Prize (1950-1954)
19. Increasing Involvement in World Peace, Part 1 (1955-1958)
20. Increasing Involvement in World Peace, Part 2 (1959-1963)
21. The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (1964-1967)
22. The University of California, San Diego (1968-1969)
23. Stanford University (1969-1972)
24. An Institute for Science and Orthomolecular Medicine, Part 1 (1973-1977)
25. An Institute for Science and Orthomolecular Medicine, Part 2 (1978-1981)
26. The Years Alone: Pauling after the Death of Ava Helen, Part 1 (1982-1988)
27. The Years Alone: Pauling after the Death of Ava Helen, Part 2 (1989-1994)
28. About the Author