States born from other states.
Not every American state was carved from empty territory. Some were cut out of existing states, because people over the mountains felt too far away, or because a war split them in two.
The short version, from my channel. Watch it on YouTube.
Kentucky: too far from Richmond
After the Revolution, the land west of the Appalachian Mountains called Kentucky was a county of Virginia. For settlers there, the state government in Richmond was weeks of travel away over the mountains, and it could not protect them or settle their disputes quickly.
After a series of conventions, Virginia agreed to let Kentucky go. On 1 June 1792 it joined the Union as the 15th state, the first state west of the Appalachians.
Tennessee: North Carolina's western land
North Carolina also stretched over the mountains. In 1784 it offered its western land to Congress, and settlers there, briefly on their own, set up a State of Franklin with its own governor, John Sevier. North Carolina took the offer back, Congress never recognised Franklin, and it fell apart within a few years.
North Carolina finally handed the land over in 1789. It became the Southwest Territory in 1790 and the state of Tennessee on 1 June 1796, with John Sevier, the former governor of Franklin, as its first governor.
West Virginia: split by a war
When Virginia seceded in 1861, the mountain counties of the north-west refused to go with it. A pro-Union government of Virginia formed in Wheeling and gave its consent to a new state. President Lincoln signed the statehood bill on 31 December 1862, and West Virginia joined the Union on 20 June 1863, in the middle of the war. The full story is in borders nobody agreed to.
Maine belongs on this list too: it was part of Massachusetts until 1820. More on that in states that were almost one.
- 1784 The State of Franklin is declared
- 1 June 1792 Kentucky becomes the 15th state
- 1 June 1796 Tennessee becomes the 16th state
- 1820 Maine separates from Massachusetts
- 20 June 1863 West Virginia becomes the 35th state
Sources
- History of Kentucky, Wikipedia
- State of Franklin, Wikipedia
- Southwest Territory, Wikipedia
- History of West Virginia, Wikipedia