Ferdinand Sannoner: The Man Who Named Florence

Ferdinand Sannoner was born in Tuscany, Italy in 1793. He was a highly educated individual who was a multilingual master at the age of sixteen. Sannoner was a highly regarded engineer at the age of eighteen. 

He worked as an engineer and surveyor in Italy prior to moving to the US. The town of Florence, Italy named Sannoner Surveyor of the first class in the Arno district on November 21, 1811. Later on, he worked for Napoleon as a surveyor in France. Sannoner landed in New York in 1816, then in 1818 he moved to Madison County, Alabama.

Ferdinand Sannoner was a graduate of the French Polytechnic School and, according to local tradition, came to the United States from France carrying letters from the French government to our own. President Jackson reportedly ordered him to Alabama to work with General John Coffee, the state's surveyor general at the time. Sannoner was tasked with "laying off" the new town at the base of the Muscle Shoals, while Coffee was due to start surveying freshly acquired Native American lands.

The trustees of the town were so pleased with his work and enthusiasm that they granted him the privilege of naming it after his native city, Florence, Italy, he having said its situation reminded him of his beautiful and beloved city on the hills overlooking the blue Arno.

Sannoner and James H.Weakley were both employed in the United States Land Office at Huntsville, under General Coffee, and both came to Florence to attend the first sale of lots on July 22, 1818, to "act as clerks” of the sale. They made a record of the number, price, and name of the purchaser of each lot as it was bid off. Sannoner remained in Florence for several days making out title papers, etc. then carried all the papers back to Huntsville where they were kept until General Coffee came to Florence to live in 1819, when they were sent to him. 

Sannoner remained in the Land Office for many years and in all probability aided in laying off many of the new towns of this section, such as Triana, Cotton Port, Marathon, Bainbridge, Marion, York Bluff, Havana, Tuscumbia, and others on the banks of the great Muscle Shoals. A few copies of the old maps bear out this belief, as they bear his name. The Land Office was burned in Florence in December 1827, and all its records lost.

After the Land Office was relocated from Huntsville to Florence in 1823, Sannoner settled there and stayed there constantly until roughly 1850, at which point he moved to Memphis to live with one of his sons. 1859 saw Sannoner's death in Memphis.

The current residents of Florence owe Ferdinand Sannoner a debt of gratitude for the kind seale he used to plan the streets and squares of our lovely city. He must have seen in his mind's eye the mass of people that, after more than two centuries, would swarm the sidewalks and clog the streets with automobiles and trucks. As Florence's first municipal engineer, let Ferdinand Sannoner's name be respected and remembered.