Chesterfield County, South Carolina: History
The county is named for Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, a British politician who opposed the Stamp Act of 1765, which was deeply unpopular in South Carolina, and who was known for always speaking up for the rights of the colonists while he was serving in the British Parliament and when he served as British Secretary of State.
The county was formed in 1785, but was part of what was then known as Cheraws District until 1800, at which time Chesterfield became a district itself. In the 1700s, the area that would become Chesterfield County was settled primarily by immigrants from England and Wales, as well as by smaller numbers of immigrants from County Antrim, Ireland, in what has since become Northern Ireland. Northern Irish immigrants were overwhelmingly Presbyterians of Scottish descent, due to the fact that they were from Ireland but were of Scottish origins. They were referred to by the rest of colonial society as "Scotch-Irish" however this was not a term they self-applied, preferring to refer to themselves as "Ulstermen" or "Irish Presbyterians." Under the post-American Civil War (1861–1865) state constitution of 1867, passed during the Reconstruction era, South Carolina districts became counties with home rule.
On April 10, 2020, a case of Influenza A virus subtype H7N3 was confirmed in what The Post and Courier described as "a commercial turkey flock" which resulted in the disinfecting & quarantine of the farm. This is the 1st confirmed case of H7N3 in the United States since another case was found in Lincoln County, Tennessee on March 5, 2017. Four days later on April 14, a second case was confirmed at a turkey farm in Jefferson, South Carolina resulting in the euthanization of 32,000 turkeys. Clemson University released the map of the control area for the first turkey farm infected by the virus on May 4.