Travel Forum / Destinations / USA and Canada / July 2008

Heard this on the radio: he was talking about the origin of the
states/shapes.

The original 13 colonies had defined their areas, and when the US
accumulated the rest of the country there came a point in time when it was
just expedient to chop up into squares: however...

Massachusetts is one of the original states, but its border has changed.
Notably the Southwest corner of Massachusetts used to be a point and now
it looks like it's been snipped off and given to New York. That's because
there was a town there and the only road to the town was through New York
or Connecticut. In Massachusetts, authorities had a difficult time getting
to that town and it attracted a lot of bad guys. So, in the 1850's they
agreed to let New York have that town and clean out the vice.
If you look, you'll still see where " Under Mountain Road " defines the
snipped area.
Originally Vermont was part of New York.

Comes the Revolution, Vermont says, "We want to be our own colony."
Continental Congress says, "Sorry you're part of New York." Vermont says,
"Then we'll fight with the British." And only George Washington's
intervention stopped it when he said, "Our troops will not fight against
people from Vermont." And then Congress said, begrudgingly "You can be
your own entity too."

Congress created Mid-western and western states to be roughly equal except
California and Texas.

The fact is that Congress did not create California or Texas - they
created themselves. In the case of California, we acquired that line with
the Mexican War in 1848 and within one year so many people flocked to
California that before Congress could create a territorial government,
California created its own territorial government and sent a proposal to
Congress with boundaries, skipping the whole territorial process - it
wanted to go right to statehood.