The Belfast House is one of many examples of transplanted names

by Dr David Hume 

I first learned about the Belfast House in Laurens, South Carolina, in a somewhat circuitous way. A Texan was visiting Northern Ireland to research her ancestry in the Glenarm area of Co Antrim and was introduced to me by a friend in the local Family History Society some years ago. She later sent me information about the Belfast House, erected in 1786 by John Simpson of Ulster for his English bride, Mary Wells, of Burford, Oxfordshire. The building has survived the test of time and is now owned by a major South Carolina paper company. This year, ahead of a holiday to the USA, I made contact with the Laurens County Historical Society and arranged to meet county librarian William Cooper with a view to visiting the property.

   We drove down to Laurens on one of the hottest days of the summer. Since I had last been in the town some years ago, considerable development has taken place, but the town square with its impressive courthouse remains the same. We duly met up with Bill Cooper and followed him on a journey out of town which took us into sparsely populated countryside. Along a lengthy stretch of road our guide indicated a right turn and as we followed him a signboard displayed the name of the house and the date when it had been built. In front of us was an impressive two-storey building.

   Belfast House is a typical plantation structure, and the bricks to build it were imported from Simpson's native land. Behind it today the Belfast Forest of fir trees stretches for acres. The bright white two-storey dwelling has four large columns at the front and one can imagine  it would have been a major social focus when the Simpsons lived there.

   Today it is one of the oldest, best preserved of the prominent landmarks in the South Carolina Piedmont.  Located in lower Laurens County, the tall Georgian manor house has been a show place for almost two centuries. The white exterior is accented by the long, small-paned windows flanked with dark green shutters. Interior walls are covered with a hard finish plaster made of mud, salt and horse hair, coated  with alabaster-like white plaster.

   The four large rooms in the main body of the structure have hand carved mantels of black walnut which were made in England. The floors are long leaf pine, the single planks running the full length and put together with wooden pegs. This was the home of a well-to-do Ulster emigrant and his family.

   John Simpson's parents and siblings had emigrated from Co Antrim to South Carolina while he remained at home to complete his education. He became a merchant in London and married Mary Wells before following the family trail across the Atlantic. The couple had seven children, one of whom married a US Congressman, John Griffin.  William Dunlap Simpson, Governor of South Carolina from 1879-1880 was born at Belfast House. He was the grandson of John Simpson
In its early history, Belfast housed the only post office between Laurens and Newberry, so it is a very historical house for a number of reasons.

   Driving along the country road which (eventually) leads to Saluda, it was quite amazing to see the roadside sign declaring "Belfast 1786". Of course, the name of the house was not in isolation. Belfast was a name from home for many of those who lived in the countryside around.

   A document on petitions for naturalization in Laurens County which is housed in the Public Record Office for Northern Ireland shows many applying with details that they were natives of Ireland (and in this geographical context that means generally the north), and several listing particular counties. Alexander Stuart petitioned for naturalization in 1806, for example, stating himself to be a native of Co Antrim who had lived in the United States for over ten years. His application is also of interest because of the names of those certifying as to his character; William Caldwell, J. Simpson, William Dunlap, George Bowie, William Nibbs and J. W. McKeebin.

   Anthony McFaul was a County Antrim man in his twenties and had came to America in 1811, while John Cannon was from Co Donegal, William Milligan from Antrim, John Ranson and John Ross from Monaghan, and Thomas Kirkpatrick was from Londonderry. His application tells us that he sailed from Belfast to Charleston in 1818. Others give interesting detail, such as the application by Andrew Matthews of the city of Londonderry, and we are informed that he arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, in September 1818 and the following year moved to Columbia in South Carolina.

   Andrew Kennedy was aged 41 years and had come from Co Antrim, with his wife Ann, aged 40. They had three children; Cunningham Moore Kennedy, who was 17 years old and had been born in Co Antrim, Isabella, aged 14, who was born in Co Meath, and John, aged 13, who was born in Meath as well. The family emigrated from Belfast in October 1823.

   Laurens was just one of many areas where population settlement and placename both reflected an Ulster heritage. At Long Canes settlement, also in South Carolina, there was a Belfast, Hillsborough and Londonderry township, not surprising when we consider the composition of emigrants brought to the area by the Ulster-Scots Calhoun family. In the context of Londonborough, Greenwood County, it appears that the township was formed by German settlers. They named the area, but it would also be known as Londonderry.

   Margaret Watson, local historian of the area, noted in her excellent book "Greenwood County Sketches"; "A township totalling about 25,000 acres was allotted to the Germans. Its name Londonborough honoured the colonists benefactors. The occasional use of 'Londonderry' for the township is incorrect..."

   The Germans, it seemed, moved on in time. But the townships of Belfast and Hillsborough were neighbouring and obviously had Ulster settlers. It was hardly surprising that they would add to the two local placenames with a third, which sounded similar to the original and also provided another reminder of home.

   This process would be important for first generation settlers, while for others it would provide a genetic clue to origins. Samuel Evans of Columbia, Pennsylvania, was born in Donegal, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1823, the great great grandson of Lazarus Lowry of Ulster, who emigrated to the area in 1729.

   The family became very prominent in the community life of the area and Samuel Evans, whose biographical sketch appears in the proceedings of the Third Scotch-Irish Congress in 1891, was a Union solider during the American Civil War as well as a historian and author of the history of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The family was proud of being of Ulster and Huguenot stock.

   On the modern map there are many placenames such as Donegal, reflecting the spread of Ulster settlers. There is a Newry in South Carolina, a Belfast in Maine (and many other places), New Londonderry in New Hampshire and a Mount Mourne in North Carolina. There are, of course, several Antrims scattered across the world, and in Ontario there is a Cookstown, a Glenarm and a Caledon.

   Kentucky once had a Larne which were was a mere stop along a railroad route. Straban township was founded in Pennsylvania by Tyrone exiles. The township, north of Gettysburg, was founded in the 18th century, early settlers having surnames such as Bell, Campbell, Fleming, Hadden, Henderson, Maxwell, Miller, Murphy, McBroom, McCrea, Neely, Patterson, Reid, Ross and Simpson. Among them were John and Jean King, who were from Dungannon, and had originally settled in Tyrone Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania.

   On occasions exiles named their properties after the land they had left. Hugh McConnell, a Co Antrim exile in Victoria, Australia, named his home ÔRalooÕ in honour of the rural district outside Larne where he was born. Similarly, "Knockbreda Park", which was to be found in Salisbury, Rhodesia, was the home of Belfastman James Taylor. He was a prominent Freemason and had joined the Masonic Order in 1901 in Belfast, becoming a member of the Ulidia Lodge. By the time of a return visit to Ulster in 1931 he was Provincial Grand Master of the newly formed Masonic Province of Rhodesia.

   The Belfast Weekly Telegraph detailed how after emigrating to South Africa, he had helped to form a new lodge in Pietermaritzburg, capital of Natal, in 1910, which also took the name Ulidia Lodge. He later formed and became WM of St. Patrick Lodge in Salisbury, Rhodesia, in 1921. The names of the lodges and of his home were a reminder of the origins of James Taylor.

   There are doubtlessly many other places with local names. A friend in New Zealand told me a few years ago of a small settlement close to Invercargill on the southern tip of New Zealand. One wonders who named Larne Street, Carrickfergus Street and Antrim Street there.

   Equally of interest in relation to placenames are the incidences of local names appearing on gravestones. During trips to the United States, I have been impressed by the mentions of often small rural districts on 18th and 19th century graves in South Carolina, for example. At Abbeville, I found a stone which related to the Knox and Moore families and mentioned "the town of Raloo, Co Antrim, Ireland". At Waxhaw cemetery further north there are gravestones which mention the Co Antrim locations of Derrykeighan, Loughgiel and Crosshill. There is also a Crosshill in South Carolina, and I wonder if it relates to the little crossroads outside Larne which houses a Presbyterian church on one side of the road and, perhaps ironically, a public house on the other. Names have also been handed down from one generation to the other.
 
   I was once contacted by a descendant of a Revolutionary American soldier called James Steen. Although thousands of miles from home, James Steen did not forget his roots, and the lady concerned was able to impart the information that he said he had come from a place called the Vow in County Antrim, a rural district in the north of the county. That James Steen remembered his origins and passed on the basic knowledge of his roots speaks volumes about the power of place in the life of the emigrant.