From: "lee gilliland" <leeandalexis at hotmail.com>
To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Subject: [WSFA] Re: West Virginia
Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 09:16:12 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	Ah, Ron, you have touched on another of my obscure hobbies:
alternate United States.  Among the many proposals for states that never
materialized were Westsylvania in modern western Pennsylvania and Ohio,
Vandalia in Ohio-Indiana, Franklin in modern Tennessee, Jefferson (I) in
Colorado, Jefferson (II) in northwestern Texas, Sequoyah in eastern
Oklahoma, Lincoln (I) in southern Texas, and Lincoln (II) in Idaho.  Back in
the '70s a guy named Pearcy proposed revising the entire 50 United States to
have only 38 states, all with new names.  Under this proposal, northern
Virginia (and D.C.) would join Maryland to form the new state of Chesapeake.
During the Civil War, the Confederates attempted to organize territories of
Arizona and New Mexico within in the former New Mexico Territory.  However,
their proposed territories were long and narrow like Tennessee rather than
the current squarish models.  The idea was never effective and was
suppressed entirely when the California National Guard invaded Texas.
	One of the major historical reasons for the differences between
Virginia and West Virginia was that West Virginia was colonized primarily by
Marylanders moving west thru Harper's Ferry while central Virginia was
colonized primarily by Tidewater Virginians moving west thru Richmond.

You missed one, Lee - although I can't recall the name of the proposed state
(it will undoubtedly come to me at 3;22 am Saturday) there was a movement
afoot in Buffalo, NY in the 1840s and -50s to take Grand Island, which is in
the middle of the Niagara River and about 10 miles square, into a
blacks-only state.  Abolitionists, of course.  Isn't obscure history fun?

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