Talk:Vandalia

Vandalia was not proposed as an alternate name to West Virginia at the Wheeling conventions

The statement that the name Vandalia was offered as an alternate to West Virginia is not accurate, according to a recent textbook of WV History. The only name offered in alternative to "West Virginia" was "Kanawha". At the "Adjorned Session" of the Second Wheeling Convention, the name "Kanawha" was proposed and accepted on August 20, 1861. Then at the First Constituional Convention, on December 2, 1861, the name "Kanawha" was replaced with the name "West Virginia." The name "Kanawha" was rejected for several reasons, including the claim that people not from Charleston or Parkersburg couldn't spell it.

Reference: Brown, SW, Rice, OK, West Virginia, A History, p. 122, p. 141, 2nd. Ed, University Press of Kentucky, 1993.

The funny thing is that I've heard this claim about Vandalia all my life, I even saw Jennifer Garner repeat it on the Jay Leno show a couple of years ago. Imagine my surprise when I recently read the documented story in the referenced textbook. According to the bibliography of the textbook, the original source is the Proceedings of the 2nd Wheeling Convention, as found in the Virginia State Library in Richmond and also published in a Charleston newspaper. I will leave this discussion up for about a week before I change the article. Please add to this discussion. WVhybrid 03:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Try- 'www.wvculture.org', It's got a page on Vandalia during the 1770's. It is very revealing about how it was founded and it's trobeled 15 year history. I tryed to add the link to the artical page, but something seemes to be jaming it, so my server could not conect when it was on the Wiki artical. It was O.K. on Google- It's worth a read! Google- "Vandalia colony Allegheny mountains" and up it comes. --Homer slips. 06:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)