From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: West Virginia
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 09:34:33 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	Yes, obscure history is very much fun!  The state of Lincoln
(southern Texas) was another blacks only proposal and there have been at
least three maintstream novels and three science fiction novels with blacks
only states or countries within the borders of the United States.
	There was also a proposal to move all the Jews in the world to upper
New York State, which would certainly have altered the news from the Middle
East.
	The Upper Peninsula of Michigan proposed to become the state of
Superior and the western panhandle of Nebraska proposed to secede and either
become a separate state or join Wyoming.  Martha's Vinyard and Nantucket
islands proposed to secede from Massachusetts at one time and the state of
Colorado offered to annex them if they did.  There was a proposal to change
the name of North Dakota to just Dakota because "North" sounded cold.  And
there have been recurrent proposals to divide California, most recently into
3 states.  In 1859, the state of California did pass a real law to divide
into 2 states but Congress did not approve so we are spared too many
Californias.  During the early Civil War, the Mayor of New York City
proposed to make NYC, Long Island and Staten Island the independent free
state of Tri-Insula.
	Shameless plug:  I incorporated a lot of this stuff into an upcoming
alternate history novel series, including Tri-Insula, which I renamed
Islandia because the projected state is almost entirely composed of islands.
B-)

-----Original Message-----
From: lee gilliland [mailto:leeandalexis at hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 9:16 AM
To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Subject: [WSFA] Re: West Virginia

	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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