Chicago, Connecticut!
Posted by:
Paul Petraitis
()
Date: December 20, 2013 12:25PM
When the British colonies on the east coast were granted their royal charters the King didn't know the geography of North America. Nobody did. Many (not all) were given a "sea to sea" charter that included landall the way to the Pacific Ocean! So anyone in the Chicago area in the 1950's would've been a part of Connecticut! Connecticuts land claim extended roughly from Evanston south to Manteno. It was never surveyed, and when Thomas "TJ" Jefferson put together the idea of the NW Territory he made the newly created State give up their western claims. Connecticut gave up most of their claims but ciouldn't resist holding on to land in what would become Ohio. Ohio, the first state to be carved out of the NW Terr was a hot mess initially,full of conflicting land claims from private individuals, Indian Tribes, fantastic money grubbing "corporations" buing gov't land with devalued state script, getting friends in congress to OK their shenanigans, sounds very contemporary in fact! The U.S. got the bugs out of their state business with Ohio as their test subject and quickly got down to the business of treating away land from its original inhabitants, so, just consider "Chicago, Connecticut! They didn't even know about Lake Michigan when the charter was granted!