Florence, South Carolina: A Railroad Town Named for a Daughter
Florence, South Carolina, is named for Florence Harllee, daughter of Gen. W. W. Harllee, who was president of the Wilmington & Manchester Railroad. Fitting, then, that the place grew into what a 1908 state handbook called “distinctly a railroad city.”
The general’s daughter
Two early reference books agree on the name. Henry Gannett’s 1905 survey of American place names for the U.S. Geological Survey lists Florence as a county, township and town in South Carolina, “named for the daughter of” Gen. W. W. Harllee. Three years later, E. J. Watson’s Handbook of South Carolina gave the same answer for the county: “After Florence, daughter of Gen. W. W. Harllee.”
Neither book says much about her father, but Yates Snowden’s 1920 History of South Carolina fills in a bit. Listing the railroad presidents who sat in the 1860 secession convention, it names “Lieutenant Governor Wm. W. Harllee, of the Wilmington & Manchester.” So the man whose daughter gave the town its name was a general, a lieutenant governor and the head of a railroad.
The city of Florence’s own history page tells the same story about the name. A historical marker in town adds a date: it says the first depot called Florence went up in 1852, where the railroad crossed what’s now Hoffmeyer Road. You’ll also run into stories online about who suggested the name, but none of them could be traced to a solid source, so they’re left out here.
“Distinctly a railroad city”
The tracks made the place. Watson’s 1908 handbook calls Florence “the principal railroad center” of the Pee Dee section, with the Atlantic Coast Line’s shops in town and lines running out to Charleston, Columbia, Wilmington and Wadesboro, North Carolina. The railroad shops, it says, employed “more than 400 men.” The town had 3,395 people in 1890 and 4,647 in 1900.
When Florence County was set up in 1888, Florence became the county seat. That’s how the name got used twice. Watson’s table of county names gives Florence County the same origin as the town, and Gannett lists them together. So if you look up either one, you end up with the same general’s daughter.
Sources & further reading
- Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905). Florence, “county, and township and town in same county, in South Carolina, named for the daughter of” Gen. W. W. Harllee (p. 127; the scanned text spells the surname “Hardlee”).
- E. J. Watson, Handbook of South Carolina (1908). Florence as “distinctly a railroad city” and “the principal railroad center” of the section, the Coast Line’s lines and shops, “more than 400 men,” population in 1890 and 1900, and county seat since 1888 (pp. 570–571); county table, “After Florence, daughter of Gen. W. W. Harllee” (pp. 572–573).
- Yates Snowden, ed., History of South Carolina, vol. 2 (1920). “Lieutenant Governor Wm. W. Harllee, of the Wilmington & Manchester” among the railroad presidents at the 1860 convention (p. 667).
- Historical Marker Database, “Florence.” The first depot named Florence, built in 1852 where the railroad crossed present-day Hoffmeyer Road.
- City of Florence, “Our History: About Florence.” The city’s own account of the name.
- GNIS feature 1222461 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record for Florence: county and coordinates.
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