John Fletcher Darby

Who was John Fletcher Darby?

John Fletcher Darby was a U.S. Representative from Missouri and the fourth mayor of St. Louis, Missouri.

Darby was born in Person County, North Carolina. He moved with his father to Missouri in 1818, where he worked on a farm, before moving to Frankfort, Kentucky in 1825. Thereafter he studied law, was admitted to the bar and returned to Missouri to practise in St. Louis. He was the mayor of St. Louis from 1835 to 1837 and 1840 to 1841, between which he served as a member of the Missouri Senate, in 1838.

He was elected as a Whig to the Thirty-second United States Congress, after which he returned to St. Louis and became a banker. He died near Pendleton, Missouri on May 11, 1882 and is interred at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.