“L” is for Londonborough Township. At times referred to as Belfast and Londonderry, the 22,000-acre Londonborough Township was laid out on Hard Labor Creek in 1762. Originally designed to provide a buffer between the Cherokees and lowcountry plantations, it was primarily populated by poor Palatine German Protestants who had been living in England. Johann Heinrich Christian von Stümpel, a “too hopeful immigration agent”, had recruited the settlers. Sponsored by a group of London philanthropists, granted land, and provisioned by the colonial government, these Germans began to arrive in the colony in 1764. Subsequent groups followed and by 1765, some 250 Germans were living in the township. Attempts to grow hemp failed. Mindful of their debt to their benefactors, many of the settlers in Londonborough Township sided with the British and left South Carolina at the conclusion of the war.
