The story of a family is always larger than its names and dates. It is the landscape they shaped, the communities they founded, and the memory they leave behind. The Poston Family of South Carolina is more than a genealogy—it is a testament to a lineage that has been interwoven with the history of the Pee Dee region for over two centuries.
Shropshire, England → Chester Co., PA → Great Philadelphia Wagon Road → Marion (now Florence) County, SC → the unincorporated community of Poston.
Along the way, one Andrew Poston left such an imprint on the Pee Dee backcountry that the railroad stop—and eventually the whole town—borrowed his last name. Today that dot on the map is more than a fading whistle‑stop; it’s living testimony to grit, river mud, and one very stubborn family tree.
John ¹ Poston,
the Immigrant (c. 1700s)
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Sailed from Liverpool and shows up in Chester County, Pennsylvania tax rolls by 1722.
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Early land patent: 274 ½ acres straddling the Octoraro Creek.
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DNA isn’t in yet, but paperwork screams Shropshire.
John ² & Margaret
(Baldridge) Poston
By 1766 the second‑generation John sold the Pennsylvania farm, loaded a Conestoga wagon, and rumbled down the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road with his kids—landing in what was then Marion District, SC. Among those children were John ³ and Anthony ³ (often mis‑remembered as Andrew). Tradition said “John & Andrew”; the records shout “John & Antney.”
Anthony ≠ Andrew
Family gossip swapped Anthony’s name for Andrew sometime in the 1800s. The paper trail—even Anthony’s own son Hugh’s 1838 Bible—uses Anthony. So when you read that “two brothers, John and Andrew, came from England,” mentally correct it to John and Anthony.
Planting the Town
Hugh Poston (b. 1791) farmed the Great Pee Dee bottoms and raised 11 kids. His son Andrew Poston (1829 – 1916) became a land‑owning rail advocate. Local lore—and the Florence Morning News clipping Wikipedia cites—credits Andrew’s depot deal with sparking a boom that led CSX’s predecessor to label the siding “Poston.”
From ancestor John Poston’s 1722 tax line in colonial Pennsylvania to Andrew Poston’s 1914 railroad depot that put our name on the Florence‑County map, every generation of Postons has traded sweat for opportunity. Today, Dr. Harold Chalmers Poston, Jr., his wife and his two sons steward the Preserve - keeping the Poston name right where it belongs. Right here in the LowCountry. South Carolina. God's country. Home.