Vandalia

Vandalia was the name in the late 1700s of a proposed British colony in North America. The colony would have been located south of the Ohio River, primarily in what are now West Virginia and northeastern Kentucky. Vandalia was never approved by the British Crown and had no colonial government, although some Virginians and Pennsylvanians had already settled there. After the American Revolutionary War, the Vandalia settlers sought unsuccessfully to be admitted as a state called Westsylvania. However, they had no legal title to the land and were opposed by the governments of Virginia and Pennsylvania, which both claimed the area as their own under colonial charters. Ultimately the federal government split the area between Pennsylvania and Virginia according to the Mason–Dixon line. Kentucky was later settled by Virginians and admitted as a state; West Virginia was admitted as a state during the American Civil War. History In the 18th century, British land speculators several times attempted to colonize the Ohio Valley, most notably in 1748 when the British Crown granted a petition of the Ohio Company for 200,000 acres (800 km2) near the "Forks of the Ohio" (present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). The French and Indian War (1754–63) and Pontiac's Rebellion (1763–66) delayed settlement of the region.