VIP Magazine

Category: Under the Dome

  • Who Is William W. Harllee?

    Who Is William W. Harllee?

        The Town of Florence was founded in the late 1850’s. It was at the junction of the Northeastern Railroad, the Cheraw and Darlington Railroad, and the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad. The town was more likely a village and was located within Darlington County. The President of the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad was William Wallace Harllee. He named the town after his young daughter Florence.

        W.W. Harllee has been in the news recently due to the refusal of the Florence County Museum to accept a bronze statue of Mr. Harllee and his daughter, Florence. The statue was sculpted by noted Florence sculptor Alex Palkovich and for the most part has been privately funded.

        A few facts about the Harllees: William Wallace Harllee was born in 1812. He was elected a Major in the S.C. Militia in 1837 and promoted to Brigadier General of the militia in 1845. William W. Harllee was a distinguished lawyer. He was admitted to the S.C. Bar in 1834. He practiced law in Marion (Florence didn’t exist at the time) and was elected to the S.C. House of Representatives twice, once in 1836 and again in 1848. He was a successful businessman and railroad promoter. He was the president of the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad when it was built through what is now Florence in the 1850’s. The village of Florence first appears on maps in the 1850’s. The village was named for his young daughter Florence, although the family did not live there at that time. William Harllee was elected Lt. Governor of the State of S.C. in 1860. He was still a general in the S.C. Militia, but he was never a commissioned officer of the Confederate Army. (The Civil War was fought from 1861-1865.) To my knowledge, he never left the state during the war.  After the war, he continued his law practice and interest in politics. He was elected to the S.C. Senate from Marion in 1880 and was the president pro tem of the Senate. He was a political opponent of Ben Tillman and the Tillmanite movement and his participation in political matters ended with Tillman’s election as governor in 1890. He was elected the president of the S.C. Bar Association in 1885 and moved to the by-then prospering Town of Florence in 1889 to practice law. Florence Harllee was born in 1848 and never married; she lived with her family. When William Harllee died in 1897, Florence remained. She was a schoolteacher and lived in a home on the corner of Irby and Pine Streets until her death in 1927.

  • Supreme Court Justices

        “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” This quote is from the first sentence of Article III Section 1 of the United States Constitution, establishing the Judicial branch of our government.

        Article II of the Constitution establishes and delineates the Executive power of the President of the United States of America. Article II Section 2 contains the Appointments Clause: [the President] “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint…, Judges of the supreme Court.”

        There have been 113 Justices of the United States Supreme Court since the Constitution was adopted in 1789, three of those from South Carolina. Congress initially set the number of Justices at 6. The number of Justices varied from 6 to 7 to 9 to 10, until Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1869 stipulating that the Supreme Court would consist of the Chief Justice and 8 Associate Justices. The number of seats of the Court has remained constant since 1869. The only serious challenge to maintaining 9 Justices was Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to “pack the Court” in 1937. Roosevelt was frustrated that the Supreme Court had declared several of his New Deal programs as unconstitutional. Despite intense lobbying by President Roosevelt, his proposed bill was seen as political maneuvering and was soundly defeated in the United States Senate.

        The United States Constitution is silent on qualifications for Supreme Court Justices. There are no age requirements, or limits, nor is there a requirement that the candidates have law degrees. Many of the early Justices, as was common at the time, received their legal training working for a practicing lawyer and “reading the law.” After a period of apprenticeship, aspiring lawyers would sit for the bar exam. The last Justice of the United States Supreme Court who did not receive a law school degree was South Carolinian James F. Byrnes. Byrnes was an adept politician. He served in the United States House of Representatives and as a United States Senator from 1911 until 1941. He was close allies with Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt appointed Byrnes to the Court in 1941. Within months of Byrnes’s appointment, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. Roosevelt convinced Byrnes to leave his lifetime appointment on the Court to join the Executive branches’ efforts to mobilize the country for the war effort. Byrnes is credited with the second shortest tenure of any justice on the Court.

        There have only been 17 Chief Justices of the Supreme Court. John Rutledge, a Charlestonian, served as an Associate Justice from 1790 to 1791. President Washington later appointed Rutledge as the second Chief Justice which he served for 5 months in 1795. Rutledge was appointed under a temporary commission as the Senate was not in session.  When the Senate reconvened, Rutledge’s nomination was rejected. Rutledge has the distinction of having served the shortest tenure as an Associate Justice as well as serving the shortest term as the Chief Justice.

        The other South Carolinian who served on the Court had one of the longest tenures. William Johnson, another Charlestonian, was only 32 years old when he was confirmed in 1804. He was one of three Justices appointed by President Thomas Jefferson. Johnson had been an avid political supporter of Jefferson while serving as Speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1798 to 1800. He was the first non-Federalist to serve on the Court. He died while still in office in 1834 having served over 30 years as an Associate Justice.

    Willcox, Buyck & Williams, P.A.

    Serving Businesses and Individuals from Florence to Myrtle Beach: the Business Law, Litigation, Real Estate, and Federal Criminal Defense Attorneys of Willcox, Buyck & Williams, P.A.

    248 West Evans Street | Florence, SC | 843.662.3258

    2050 Corporate Centre’ Drive, Suite 230 |  Myrtle Beach, SC | 843.650.6777

  • The Legacy of Melvin H. Purvis

        FBI Agent and Bureau Chief Melvin Horace Purvis was born on October 24, 1903, in Timmonsville, South Carolina, and is best known as the federal agent responsible for bringing several notorious criminals to justice, among them outlaws John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Adam Richetti.  He graduated from the University of South Carolina with a law degree in 1925.

        He went on to work as a junior partner at The Willcox Law Firm in Florence, South Carolina. Heeding the call of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to set new professional standards at the FBI, Purvis moved to Washington, D.C. and joined the Bureau in 1927.

        Purvis excelled as a field agent, and quickly rose through the ranks.  He was one of the few agents given special attention by Hoover, in spite of his less-than-stellar administrative performance.  During his early career, he headed the Division of Investigation offices in Birmingham, Alabama, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Cincinnati, Ohio, performing his duties in an exemplary fashion.  In 1932, he was placed in charge of the Chicago office by Hoover.

        In 1933, John Dillinger went on a violent spree of bank robberies throughout the states of Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, killing numerous innocents and several local police officers.  In less than a year, his gang stole an estimated $150,000.  In an infamous escape from jail—legend has it he brandished a wooden gun fooling police officers—Dillinger fled Crown Point prison on March 3, 1934.  He drove a stolen vehicle across state lines, which was a federal offense and brought him into the jurisdiction of the FBI.  Two days after Dillinger’s jailbreak, Hoover ordered Purvis to develop a network of informants to capture the desperado.  Dillinger was deemed “Public Enemy No. 1,” and the manhunt was on.

        On July 22, 1934, after a setup crafted by Mr. Purvis, agents waited outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago until Dillinger emerged.  Although Purvis never fired a single shot, it was his signal—he identified Dillinger to his men by lighting a cigar—which led to the shootout that killed the gangster and made Purvis an overnight hero.  But Purvis refused to accept any direct credit.  Nonetheless, Purvis became famous as “The Man Who Got Dillinger.”

        Among his other credits, Purvis was also responsible for bringing about the conviction of Kansas City gangster Adam Richetti by serving as a key witness at his trial in the Union Station Massacre of 1933.  He also spearheaded the raid that led to the capture of Vern Sankley, another “Public Enemy No. 1” who faced charges of abduction, but who killed himself before he could be brought to trial.  Beyond Dillinger, the most notorious gangster to be overthrown was Lester M. Gillis, a.k.a. “Baby Face Nelson,” who died in a Purvis-led shootout in Chicago on November 27, 1934.

        After his resignation, Melvin Purvis returned to the practice of law.  He signed up for military duty during World War II, serving as a lieutenant colonel.  He married Marie Rosanne Willcox, the daughter of his former law partner, and had three sons: Melvin, Alston, and Christopher. For a time he owned a radio station, WOLS, in Florence, South Carolina.  Melvin H. Purvis died on February 29, 1960.

    Story by Robert B. Moore, Jr., Administrator, Willcox, Buyck & Williams, P.A.

  • Under the Dome – March Issue

    Under the Dome – March Issue

  • Under the Dome – February

    Under the Dome – February

  • Under the Dome – January

    Under the Dome – January

  • Under the Dome – November Issue

    Under the Dome – November Issue

  • Under the Dome

    Under the Dome

  • Under the Dome – Confederate Flag

    Under the Dome – Confederate Flag

    Throughout the South 21st century Southerners are revisiting decisions made by their 19th century predecessors to erect Confederate statues and memorials in public spaces. Opinions on the future of these memorials are as varied as opinions on the cause of the Civil War. Recently the New Orleans City Council removed prominent monuments of Jefferson Davis, General Beauregard, and Robert E. Lee. Some of the work was done under cover of darkness with workers disguised to hide their identities. The Charlottesville, Virginia City Council voted to sell their Robert E. Lee statue and rename the park where it stood. At Washington and Lee University, the school recently removed reproductions of confederate battle flags which hung in the campus chapel in which Lee’s tomb is located. The controversy is not limited to southern states as Ivy League schools such as Yale, Brown, and Princeton continue to address their institution’s historical ties to slavery and slave traders.

    South Carolinians have been grappling with its slave holding and confederate past for decades. Most remember the state legislatures’ decision to remove the confederate flag from the state house grounds 2 years ago. The more contentious argument occurred in 2000 when the legislature voted to remove the confederate banner from the dome of the state house. The flag became a national issue during the 2000 Republican Presidential Primaries in the state. In May 2000 after rancorous debate, Governor Hodges signed the Heritage Act of 2000 which permanently removed the confederate flag from the state house dome.

    With the exception of the state house grounds controversy, South Carolina has generally avoided hostile arguments related to historical markers and monuments. Much of this can be attributed to the provisions of the Heritage Act which protect all monuments and memorials to all wars as well as African-American history markers from relocation, removal, disturbance, or alteration. The Act also declares that no streets, bridges, structures, parks, or other public areas dedicated in memory of, or named for, any historic figure can be renamed. Any proposal to remove or rename a memorial or change the name of a street, park or structure requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the legislature.

    During the Civil War Florence barely warranted a spot on the map as there were only a few hundred residents. In the late 1940’s, the Florence Chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy placed 4 monuments around town marking the purported scrimmage at the intersection of Palmetto and Church Streets, the Wayside Hospital marker at the corner of Baroody and Coit Streets, the Gambles Hotel scrimmage marker and the Stockade marker. The most prominent monument stands approximately 15 feet and was originally dedicated on April 21, 1882 at the original location of the First Presbyterian Church cemetery in downtown Florence. The Atlantic Coastline Railroad purchased the property in approximately 1905 and the monument and the remains of 64 Confederate soldiers buried there were relocated to Mount Hope Cemetery where they remain today. The monument’s simple inscription reads: Our Confederate Dead.