Macclenny was originally called Darbyville because much of the land around the current Macclenny was owned by the Darby family.  Carr Bowers McClenny married into the Darby family and bought most of the land; therefore, Darbyville became known as McClenny.

Carr dealt in turpentine, sawmills, land and lumber.

It was renamed Macclenny, it is said, because the post office department had a rule against capital letters in the middle of a name.

Macclenny's first post office was established in 1890.  There were settlers in the Macclenny area as early as 1829, but most of the people settled there after the Civil War.  Macclenny is the county seat of Baker County, and has a population of approximately 4500.

Cotton and corn were the original crops grown in the area.  The Macclenny area is currently one of the most important nursery areas of the state.  It boasts Southern States Nursery, Blair Nurseries and a multitude of smaller nurseries.  The nursery business is two fold, as plants are grown in the field as well as in can.

"Baker County In Review"  published Apr 1987

There was a yellow fever epidemic in 1888 which killed most of the town residents.

The last McClennys to live in the town were the Carr McClenny family, which left in 1923.

Mr. Roman Edward McClenny, who died February 4, 1987, resided in Jacksonville Beach since 1930.  He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Macclenny, the last of the McClenny family from which Macclenny got its name.  He was a member of the Last Man's Club in Macclenny.

During World War II, Barbara Keist McClenny's husband, James F. McClenny, Jr., was stationed at Camp Blanding (near Stark, FL) and visited MacClenny, FL in 1944.  He stayed in an old boarding house and when he registered as McClenny, they wouldn't believe him until he showed them his driver's license.

Ernest Burnell McClenny, my father, was in the Camp Blanding hospital for a period of time during World War II.  While he was there my mother visited him and stayed in a local hotel in Stark (maybe the same one visited by Jim McClenny).

In 1984, Ernest Burnell McClenny visited the town of Macclenny and took pictures of some tombstones in the Woodlawn Cemetery.  The following graves were discovered: