Zimmerman Plantation – Glenn Springs – Spartanburg County

Basic Information

• Location – Along the Fairforest Creek, near Glenn Springs, Spartanburg County

• Origin of name – ? - the name of this plantation is unknown. We are calling it Zimmerman Plantation for prominent owner John Conrad Zimmerman. If you have information on this plantation's name, please let us know.
  

• Other names – Possibly Rosemont (4, p. 41)

• Current status – ?

Timeline

• ? – Earliest known date of existence

• ? – House built

• 1830 – John Conrad Zimmerman was persuaded by his uncle John Murph to leave his family's home in St. Matthews and move to Spartanburg District. The Murphs were ailing, had no children and requested help with the large amount of land they owned. In return, the Murphs would leave their property to Zimmerman (1).
  

• 1830 – Zimmerman purchased a farm on Fairforest Creek (5).
  

  Over the years, Zimmerman would purchase several additional tracts of land in the area and at one time was the largest land owner of Spartanburg County. In addition to being a planter, Zimmerman owned the famed Glenn Springs Hotel, built the historic John C. Zimmerman House, and was a very successful textile manufacturer (1).
  

• 1847 – A mortgage record notes that John Murph was a land owner near Fairforest Creek (2, p. 13).
  

• 1849 – John C. Zimmerman purchased 150 acres along Fairforest Creek from Gainum T. Rakestraw for $185 (2, p. 29).
  

• 1875 – John Conrad Zimmerman passed away on July 3. The property he had inherited from the Murphs was to be divided among his sons (1).
  

Land

• Number of acres – ?

• Primary crop – Probably cotton

Slaves

• Number of slaves – 107 in 1860 (1) (4, p. 41)

  Mary Zimmerman Cannon shares the following, "Several years ago the ancestors of slaves came back and recalled that no slave could use the Zimmerman name, all slaves had to read and write, Zimmerman had a banking system for his slaves, and he was beloved by all." (1)
  

References & Resources

1. Information contributed by Mary Zimmerman Cannon, whose third-great grandfather was John C. Zimmerman from:
   Richard N. Cote, A Family Biography: The Zimmerman and Thomas Families of South Carolina
   

2. Transcribed by Betty Jean Foster Dill, Spartanburg District Conveyance Book AA 1848-1850 & Conveyance Book BB 1850-1852 - PDF
   

3. National Register of Historic Places
   – Nomination form for Glenn Springs Historic District - PDF - submitted in 1980
   

4. Edward Lee and Jerry West, York and Western York County: The Story of a Southern Eden (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2001)
   
   

5. The Letters of William Gilmore Simms. Vol. 6, Supplement
   

6. John Belton O'Neall Landrum, History of Spartanburg County; Embracing an Account of Many Important Events, and Biographical Sketches of Statesmen, Divines and Other Public Men (Spartanburg, SC: Franklin Prtg. and Publishing Company, 1900), pp. 443-444