Westsylvania

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Westsylvania was a name suggested for an unrealized 14th colony of the United States. It was called Pittsylvania by other petitioners.

According to historian George Swetnam, "In March, 1759, less than half a year after Forbes had taken Fort Duquesne and named Pittsburgh, a letter from New Jersey to the Maryland Gazette reported a movement for application to the Crown . . . 'to settle a New Colony on the Ohio, by the name Pittsylvania.'"

It was to include southwestern Pennsylvania, the western panhandle of Maryland, nearly the whole of what is now West Virginia, a small part of what is now Virginia, and a small part of eastern Kentucky. Westsylvania's creation was petitioned in October 1775 by settlers in that region of the Second Continental Congress, believing the state governments apathetic to their concerns; however, shortly thereafter, the American Revolutionary War broke out and, in the interest of unity between the states, the Congress chose to ignore their request.

The matter arose again in 1782, and Hugh Henry Brackenridge of Pittsburgh worked to stop the statehood movement. He later wrote, "The idea was to declare themselves independent of Virginia or Pennsylvania, in the same manner as Vermont had done of the states of Massachusetts and New York. It was suggested that a new state might be formed with a seat of government at Pittsburgh, having the Kanhaway on the one side for a boundary, with Miskingum and Lake Erie on the other, and to the eastward the Allegheny mountain. I will not say that but for me this would have taken place; but I certainly contributed very much to obstruct the proposition."