John Clarenden Darley
John Clarenden Darley, the son of John Darley, Jr., a fine actor and sometime scene painter with the Chestnut Street Theatre company, was born in 1808. He achieved modest recognition in later years as a portrait painter; his work was first shown in 1822, at the Pennsylvania Academy, when he was fourteen years of age. If the "J.C. Darley" whose name appears on the elevation of the Chestnut Street Theatre is, in fact, John Clarenden Darley, and the drawing is to be dated sometime between 1816 and 1820 (owing to the presence of the Gas House in the plan), it would seem likely that the eight to twelve year old boy was serving as an apprentice to John Nisbet at the time the drawings of the plan and elevation of the theatre were made.
[See John R. Wolcott, "Philadelphia's Chestnut Street Theatre: A Plan and Elevation," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, October 1971. Vol XXX, no. 3. pp. 209 - 218.]
