Colony of Virginia   When in 1584 Elizabeth I was granting Sir Walter Raleigh the early charter that involved Roanoke, it was decided that her sobriquet, the Virgin Queen, should be the basis for the name of the colony. Therefore, the name “Virginia” is the oldest English-language place name in North America.

However, the first successful settlement came about only later by the Virginia Company of London, which was chartered in April 1606 by James I for the purpose of colonization. It sent an expedition across the Atlantic in December of that same year.

Look again at the same map of the Chesapeake and picture the settlers arriving at its entrance, where there are two headlands, today called the Virginia Capes. They made their first landfall in North America on the southern cape on April 26, 1607. They named the pair of capes after the king’s two sons, and where they made landfall remains today Cape Henry (he was the Prince of Wales), and the opposite cape is Cape Charles, for Henry’s younger brother. There is today a Cape Henry Memorial to commemorate this First Landfall.

But the Capes were too exposed, so they continued due west 64 km (40 mi) from Cape Henry up what they named after the king the James River, which lies directly opposite. A couple of weeks later, on May 14, 1607, they landed at a promising site well up the river. It was an island, which offered more protection, adjacent to the north bank, and there they founded Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in what was to become the US. Captain John Smith, of Pocahontas fame, had been designated by the Virginia Company to lead the settlement.

Jamestown was made the official capital of Virginia in 1616, and remained so through the end of the century. But the river site proved inadequate in the long run, and in 1699 the capital was relocated 13 km (8 mi) inland to what was then called Middle Plantation, but was then renamed Williamsburg after King William III. Williamsburg had the advantage of higher ground, and also lay in the middle of the peninsula between the York and James Rivers.

But that, too, was not to last. Eight decades later, in 1780, the capital was again relocated from Williamsburg to Richmond, which was felt to be more secure and more central, given that the center of population had moved west. Richmond is located only 70 km (45 mi) upstream from the first capital, Jamestown. Over time, Williamsburg declined, and Jamestown almost disappeared, until the restoration of both in the 20C (2008/6).

It should be mentioned that the original 1607 Jamestown settlers arrived on three small ships, the Susan Constant, plus the smaller Godspeed and Discovery. Although I understand that modern copies of them have been made and are to be seen today at the Jamestown Settlement, why are they not remembered as well as the Mayflower?

Another curiosity connected with this area is culinary. Americans are used to salt-cured hams, and, when these hams are referred to as Virginia hams, people usually don’t think twice about the state. Usually, these hams are just Virginia-style, but the genuine thing comes from southeastern Virginia. The town of Smithfield on the south bank of the James River, just a short way downstream from Jamestown, is an epicenter of these hams, and Virginia regulations have what could be called a “controlled designation of origin” limiting the use of the term “Smithfield ham” to a closely-defined local region. This is similar to what the French do with the designation AOC for wines and cheeses (Appelation d’origine contrôlée).

The Virginia that started here along the James River just off Chesapeake Bay, as mentioned earlier, had wildly varying land claims, probably since it was the first colony, and had few limitations, and no competing colonies to limit its claims. Early Virginia claims included upper Carolina as we’ve seen and up to the Great Lakes. Until 1784 it even had a claim beyond the Ohio River as far as the Upper Mississippi. But just as the original Carolina ended at the Lower Mississippi, the practical fact of the matter was the western limitation of Virginia at the Ohio River plus a tiny bit of the Lower Mississippi River, as we’ve said. This we can call triple-wide Virginia.

After Virginia relinquished that 1784 claim beyond the Ohio, its western end, the part that bordered on the rivers, became the state of Kentucky in 1792. (Kentucky settlement ensued heavily via the Cumberland Gap through 1810 at the tripoint of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee [2008/6]). This left a double-wide Virginia for the next seven decades, up until the Civil War. By that time, most states in the East had been formed, so this last split in Virginia was probably the last border change in the eastern US. When Virginia voted to secede from the Union, a number of counties in its northwestern sector, where opinion was against secession, voted to secede from Virginia and applied to the US for statehood. Thus, at the height of the Civil War, the state of West Virginia came into being in 1863. The rift remained permanent, and there was no reconciliation between the two after the war. This double-secession situation is unique in American history: West Virginia successfully seceding from Virginia as it unsuccessfully tried to secede from the Union.

Now that we’ve discussed the area, we can consolidate thoughts on this map: Colony of Virginia (Map by Karl Musser). What we’ve discussed are 1) the old 1609 Virginia borders in purple; 2) the Great Lakes area claimed by Virginia; 3) the remaining triple-wide Virginia; and 4) Jamestown. But there’s a lot more material of interest on this map: 5) the note on the right is based on the fact that early settlers bound for Jamestown had been blown off course by a storm, and landed in Bermuda, so for a while, Bermuda was administered as part of the Colony of Virginia; 6) many states had aspirations to reach the mid-American rivers (some charters were even “sea-to-sea”—imagine Los Angeles as part of Carolina!), and you can see Mid-West claims by Massachusetts and Connecticut--imagine Chicago in Connecticut and Detroit in Massachusetts!; 7) overlapping all these claims is a New York one from Michigan to Georgia; 8) finally, make early note of topics for later: Delaware as part of Pennsylvania, Vermont as part of New York (initially, so was New Jersey—not shown here), and (unseen on this map) Maine was part of Massachusetts.

What we are discussing here in the formation of colonies, then states, is an attempt to understand the modern jumble of places on a map. To this I emphasize in the historical context the importance of water, water, water, and the concept of orientation. I talked about Carolina being oriented the east coast until two states were connected to the Gulf Coast so that today they’re oriented south. In the same context, it can be said that Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky historically are oriented to the rivers, which were the primary source of transportation. There is no doubt that Virginia historically is oriented to the Chesapeake, across which all connections with the outside world were made. However, all that is the historical context, to better understand the development over time. Once transportation (rail, roads, today air) changed the character of moving about, this historic context becomes less valid. Today, no one can say that Virginia is primarily oriented to the Chesapeake in the same way—look at the 20C decline of Jamestown and Williamsburg as proof.

If we talk about big cities forming along the Northeast Corridor settlement areas, what claim to a big city can Virginia have? Richmond and others are not of spectacular size. The answer comes in the contemporary megalopolis.

Today, terms like “South Florida” for the Miami area and “Southern California” for the Los Angeles area are becoming common. In that same vein, the southwestern suburbs of Washington DC are usually referred to as “Northern Virginia”. This area includes Arlington County which had once been part of the District of Columbia, but which reverted to Virginia (2006/12). Some people like to refer to Northern Virginia as NOVA. In any case, this part of Virginia is the southernmost extent of Bosnywash.

Province of Maryland   Virginia settlers got to the Chesapeake first (1609), and claimed the southern half of it near the entrance, including both capes. The Province of Maryland was chartered by Charles I afterward, in 1632. As with most of the names we’ve seen so far, its name, too, was of royal origin, being named for Charles’s wife, the Queen Consort Henrietta Maria (I suppose we’re lucky it wasn’t named Henriettaland). In any case, in time, the name varied in pronunciation so that it could today be written Merilind, yet we maintain the original spelling “Maryland”, so that some people, notably the BBC as I understand it, consistently mispronounce it to rhyme with “hairy hand”.

[Maryland vies with Arkansas as the most mispronounced state name, but in both cases, it’s the spellings that are at fault, since they do not adequately reflect reality. The name Arkansas derives from the same Native American root as Kansas, whose spelling does logically reflect the pronunciation KAN.ziss. The name Arkansas, though, was influenced by French pronunciation, thereby losing the S, for starters. Still, in the early days the pronunciation ar.KAN.ziss was common, just like KAN.ziss, along with the more Frenchified AR.kan.saw. It came down one year to a dispute between the two Arkansas senators, each one favoring one of the pronunciations. Finally, after a vote by the Arkansas state legislature in 1881, the pronunciation AR.kan.saw was made official, bless their little black hearts, and we’ve suffered the consequences ever since. Still, it should be noted that during its territorial days of 1819-1836, early on it was written Territory of Arkansaw.]

Back to Merilind. OK, Maryland. Its settlers were granted land in the upper part of the Chesapeake, north of Virginia, and it should be realized that Maryland has always been oriented to the Bay, both its eastern and western shores. The western shore is between the large estuary of the Potomac and the upper bay proper, with the eastern shore opposite. The settlers landed upstream on the Potomac, on the north bank, at Saint Clement’s Island on 25 March 1634, arriving on two ships, the Ark and the Dove. Downstream a bit they founded Saint Mary’s City, which today, from personal experience, is little more than an interesting archeological site. Further north on the western shore, the present capital of Annapolis was founded in the 1640’s, where the US Naval Academy was established in 1845. Near Annapolis is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which, like Virginia’s bridge-tunnel, connects the cross-bay parts of each state. Crossing the bridge from the urbanized west, Maryland’s Eastern Shore remains a rural retreat. Just a bit south is the Choptank River, with the city of Cambridge. Nearby is the idyllic village of Oxford. Maryland is also famous for its crab cakes, made from the local blue crab.

Back over the bridge in the west, you can drive straight to Washington. The originally diamond-shaped District of Columbia (that fascination with Columbus again) was carved over on the Potomac out of a large piece of Maryland and a small piece of Virginia in 1791 (2006/12), although the Virginia portion retroceded back in 1847, and is now part of “Northern Virginia”. Otherwise, Maryland suburbs surround the District, which to some extent functions as part of Maryland.

The next big city north in Bosnywash (in this direction is it Washnybos?) is Baltimore, founded 1729. The importance of its harbor is shown by the fact that the harbor was founded first, in 1706. At the top of the Chesapeake, not too far from the mouth of the Susquehanna, the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal connects those two bays. It runs for 23 km (14 mi) through the narrow neck of the Delmarva Peninsula. It’s a pleasure to watch the traffic here on the sea-level canal. It reduces the Baltimore-Philadelphia water route around the peninsula by 500 km (300 mi), so it isn’t surprising that 40% of the Port of Baltimore traffic uses the canal.

Looking at a map of Maryland, which has to be the most unusually-shaped state in the US, it seems to me to be a “remnant” state, just filling in areas that others didn’t take first. Being clearly oriented to both sides of the Bay, it backs up against Pennsylvania to the north, and pushes against Delaware on the other half of the upper Delmarva. Then, with Virginia having claimed the southern tip down to Cape Charles, Maryland squeezes between the two of them to have its seacoast in the middle.

In the other direction, it’s even odder. Virginia got not only the south bank of the Potomac, but then much more land to the south of that. Maryland got the north bank of the Potomac, but NOT much further north than that. Actually, it seems to have gotten considerably short-changed to the north. The result is that this western panhandle looks like a clipped wing, complimenting the state’s even shorter “wing” reaching to the Atlantic. The westernmost end of this panhandle is barely connected to the rest of the state at Maryland’s “wasp waist”, where Maryland is about only 3 km (2 mi) wide at the town of Hancock. If the Pennsylvania line had been drawn much further south, Maryland would have been cut in two.

There is also an additional quirk at this point that doesn’t occur anywhere else I can visualize—adjacent panhandles. When West Virginia was ready to break away from Virginia, it had one built-in panhandle to the north, where it runs along the Ohio River to the west, but is hemmed in by the Pennsylvania to the east. Under the original plan, West Virginia would have had a tear-drop shape. But Civil War military matters arose, which had the affect of giving West Virginia an eastern panhandle as well. There was a vital link connecting Baltimore and the Ohio River, namely the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which made its way up the Potomac River. This link couldn’t be allowed to fall into Confederate hands, so, several additional Virginia counties along the Potomac were persuaded reluctantly to join West Virginia as it broke away from its home state, resulting in this second panhandle. This explains why, from the mouth of the Potomac inland, and passing Washington, Virginia is opposite Maryland, but upriver, where the Baltimore route westward would have crossed, it’s West Virginia instead that’s opposite Maryland. This results in a geographic curiosity. Below Pennsylvania, the Maryland panhandle reaches westward, while below that, the West Virginia panhandle reaches eastward, with Virginia south of that. It has the look on a map of two arms folded across a chest. Most of the time one has to visit a quadripoint to be in four states (or other locations) in rapid succession (usually going in a circle), such as at the Four Corners (2007/14). But driving US 522 in this area accomplishes that more uniquely, in a relatively straight line. Leaving Pennsylvania southbound, it crosses Maryland’s wasp waist for its 3 km (2 mi), then beyond the Potomac runs through West Virginia for a mere 35 km (22 mi) before entering Virginia. Et voilà: four states—in a straight line—in no time at all.

But the most interesting thing to me about the Colony (and State) of Maryland (it’s the first colony we’ve discussed that became only one state) is how it became in its center so hemmed in around the upper Chesapeake, in its west mercilessly squeezed against the Potomac, and on the upper Delmarva, crowded to one side, just like two people vying for space on a backless bench. It was one of the many colonial border disputes, and the one that was settled by the drawing of the most famous border in US history—the Mason-Dixon Line. Think of it—is there any other state line anywhere that everyone knows specifically, and by name, no less?

Look at it before we discuss it: Mason-Dixon Line Note its location, and that—surprise!—it’s L-shaped. Also, while this map is handy, check out what we’ve been discussing: Maryland’s unusual shape, extending from around the Chesapeake both to the Atlantic and inland; the location of the District of Columbia; Maryland’s wasp waist, within the “folded arms” panhandles of Maryland and West Virginia around the “chest” of Virginia; the Potomac being consistently the southern border of Maryland, but with Virginia lying opposite up to the point where it was strategically imperative to have West Virginia lie opposite. Now let’s discuss the border dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania. It all started with sloppy work in original charter writing resulting in overlapping grants. Charles I’s 1632 charter granted Maryland land northward up to 40°N. Charles II’s 1681 charter granted Pennsylvania land southward down to 39°N. Whoops.

Resolution of the problem started only in 1732, which means that Philadelphia, at 39° N 57’, when it was founded in 1701 also fell within the Maryland claim, and Baltimore, at 39° N 17’, when it was founded in 1729, also fell within the Pennsylvania claim. This is serious business. Take a look (Map by Karl Musser): Province of Maryland (Bear in mind that Delaware’s conjoined-versus-independent relationship with Pennsylvania was complex and varied throughout the colonial period [see below], so the Mason-Dixon Line should be considered a Maryland-Pennsylvania issue, with the Delaware flank being a footnote.)

In 1732, an initial agreement was drawn up between the two colonies, but remained controversial until confirmed in a 1750 court ruling. The agreement drew a new line, the present one, between Maryland and Pennsylvania, at 39° 43’ 20” N, meaning Maryland was actually a party to the formation of its wasp waist. But if it had remained at just that, the line would have been an east-west demarcation going all the way to the Delaware River. Instead, given ongoing Pennsylvania-Delaware politics, Maryland as part of the negotiations, also renounced its claim in toto to the eastern side of the Delmarva, in other words, Delaware, resulting in the L-shape.

The agreement was in place, but the controversial line was not demarcated, so Maryland and Pennsylvania commissioned the English team of Mason & Dixon (the astronomer Charles Mason and the surveyor Jeremiah Dixon) to do so. The survey took place between 1763 and 1767. Stones twelve inches square were set at one-mile intervals. It is estimated that some 217-219 of these remain, and they are overseen by a volunteer group, the MDL Preservation Partnership. Note that the western end of the MDL went beyond Maryland, becoming the border between Pennsylvania and Virginia instead, although this is the part of Virginia that became West Virginia. All in all, the MDL effects four modern states, not only Maryland and Pennsylvania, but also Delaware and West Virginia.

But the line has grown beyond being a mere state line, and has become to symbolize in popular usage the cultural boundary between North and South, even a century before the Civil War. The incongruity here is that Delaware was a state sympathetic to the South, yet the MDL placed it, although it lies to its east, figuratively in the North. The additional incongruity is that none of the states immediately south of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia, seceded in the Civil War, which would have been disastrous for the North, given the location of Washington DC. These three states (plus Kentucky and Missouri) were known as the Border States and remained in the Union. Practically, then, since it was Virginia and states to its south that tried to secede, the Potomac River rather than the MDL proved to be the dividing line between North and South as the Civil War broke out.