Darling was born in Woodstock, Vermont on May 9, 1859. He was educated at Green Mountain Perkins Academy and Montpelier Seminary, and went to college at Tufts, receiving his A.B. in 1884. He was admitted to the bar in 1886, and practiced in Bennington, Vermont as the partner of Orion M. Barber.[1] A Republican, he was appointed as a municipal judge in 1887 by Governor of VermontEbenezer J. Ormsbee, and subsequently reappointed by each governor until 1901. In 1889, he married Agnes C. Norton of Bennington, and together the couple had three daughters, Margaret, Alice, and Elizabeth.
Darling was elected president of the village of Bennington in 1895, and in 1896–97, he represented the town of Bennington in the Vermont House of Representatives. He was elected president of the Vermont Bar Association in 1900.
Walter Hill Crockett, Vermont: The Green Mount State (New York: Century History Co., 1921), p. 353
Walter John Coates (ed.), A Bibliography of Vermont Poetry and Gazetteer of Vermont Poets (Montpelier: Vermont Historical Society, 1942)] [Vol. 1], p. 102.