Talk:Westsylvania

Comment

This article states that the settlers petitioned "the federal government" in October 1775. There was no such thing as a "federal government" in 1775 -- there weren't even the Articles of Confederation yet. Is this supposed to refer to the Second Continental Congress instead? -- Dan Carlson 00:54, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. I'll make the change to the article. -- Djinn112 01:03, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

Year of the Petition

This entry says that the date of the petition to create Westsylvania was October 1775. However, this article: http://www.shire.net/osl/westsylvania.htm says that there was a petition dated January 1783. I do not know if that information is reliable, but is it possible there were two petitions to create a state in the Southwestern PA area?

I think some more research into this is needed. I've found various references that indicate there may have been two petitions regarding the area and that the first petition may have referred to the area as Vandalia rather than Westsylvania. I wasn't able to see any reference to Westsylvania in the Library of Congress records for the Continental Congress or early U.S. Congresses, but there were a few to Vandalia--but I'm not sure what to make of it just yet. I wanted to stash this link for anyone interested--it has a lot of detail that could be summarized in either this article or a new one on Vandalia. The sketch indicating an area named "Indiana" in what is now West Virginia is precious. I'd love to get that in an article. older≠wiser 21:43, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

Here's more on both Vandalia and Westsylvania [1] [2] [3] Seems there is a connection between the two, but I have to read these all over more carefully before committing an opinion as to the dates. older≠wiser 22:04, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

Westsylvania ≠ Pittsylvania

This article equates Westslyvania and Pittsylvania, but to the best of my knowledge this is not exactly correct. Pittsylvania was a early suggested name for what became the proposed Vandalia colony (a land speculation scheme), while Westsylvania was a frontier independence movement. There's some overlap here, but the circumstances were different. Westsylvania and Pittsylvania were once separate articles: I'll separate them again using the sources I have. —Kevin Myers 04:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)