Re: Proposed boundaries for division of Texas, 1850's

nice try tex
& er free scope of expression

& evidently just what was needed
to shake loose my following half dozen messages 
which had been lost in the ether since last month &
given up for dead

but you really must be conjuring more than studying
the dead here

for these supposed tripoints of yours arent & werent
stillborn at all

in fact they dont even rise to the level of abortions
or miscarriages

simple misconceptions perhaps they were

or propositions advanced in a saloon

or sweet nothings if you must make them into something

but they are still just figments of someones
imagination

so it is utterly fatuous to speak of them in terms of
what would be
or even in terms of what would or might have been
actual tripoints
etc
& to then misconstrue the vague & ignorant notion
behind them as if it were a delimitation

nor does that fall within our common interest or
purview here anyway

for it is already plenty for us to consider what
actually is on the ground
& by special dispensation & extension to consider what
actually was
& perhaps to earnestly try to foresee what may
actually come to be
if indeed even that is not already pushing things a
bit

but what coulda woulda mighta sorta been 
well really i just dont know

--- "Lowell G. McManus" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Some of us study ghost boundaries and their
> tripoints, but here is an 
> interesting study in stillborn boundaries and
> tripoints.
> 
> In 1853, Frederick Law Olmsted (then a 31-year-old
> journalist, later the 
> father of American landscape architecture) and his
> younger brother Dr. 
> John Hull Olmsted undertook an extensive trip
> through the state of 
> Texas, admitted to the Union from the status of an
> independent republic 
> just eight years earlier.  The trip resulted in a
> wonderful book 
> entitled A JOURNEY THROUGH TEXAS; OR, A SADDLE-TRIP
> ON THE SOUTHWESTERN 
> FRONTIER, published under Frederick's name as
> author, but actually 
> prepared "with free scope of expression and
> personality" by John from 
> Frederick's journal while the latter worked as a
> literary agent in 
> England.  It was published in 1857 by Dix, Edwards,
> & Co. of New York 
> and was reprinted in 1978 by the University of Texas
> Press.
> 
> In a concluding chapter entitled "REGIONAL
> CHARACTERISTICS," Olmsted 
> writes:
> ___________________
> 
> NEW STATES
> 
> The actual limits of the State of Texas include an
> area of 274,362 
> square miles--or a territory greater than the
> aggregate areas of 
> Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New
> Jersey, New York and all 
> New England.  This immense region, as is well known,
> is to be divided 
> ere long into five States, according to the terms of
> the Joint 
> Resolution of Annexation.  [The resolution is quoted
> in a footnote 
> referenced here.]
> 
> The boundaries of these new States are, of course,
> not yet mapped, but 
> in local acceptance they are clearly enough
> indicated.  The vaguest 
> tavern conversation assumes a natural antagonism and
> future division 
> between Eastern and Western Texas.  The limiting
> line is not drawn--the 
> people of the East assuming the Trinity as their
> western boundary, while 
> those of the West call all beyond the Colorado,
> Eastern Texas.  This 
> leaves between the Trinity and the Colorado, Central
> Texas, a convenient 
> and probable disposition.
> 
> Northeastern Texas, or the region above the
> navigable heads of the gulf 
> rivers, and having its principal commercial
> relations with Red River, is 
> a fourth district, also distinct from the body of
> the State.  The line 
> of the proposed Pacific railroad along the
> thirty-second parallel, 
> extending upon the map from the Brazos to
> Shrieveport [sic] in 
> Louisiana, may indicate its southern limit.
> 
> Northwestern Texas remains.  It will still be the
> largest State of the 
> Union, as its great plains are only adapted, so far
> as known, for a 
> sparse population of herdsmen and shepherds.  It
> would extend as far 
> east, perhaps, as a line drawn north from the Brazos
> at 32°, and as far 
> south as a line drawn from the same point to the
> mouth of the Pecos.
> 
> But political necessities, and local jealousies and
> rivalries will 
> control the limits as well as the time of erection
> of these five States, 
> and the outlines sketched can only indicate the
> crystallizing 
> tendencies, and serve for purposes of description. 
> ["Euphonious 
> appellations" for the five states are proposed in a
> footnote referenced 
> at this point.  For the Northeast: Caddonia, Sabina,
> Waco, or Comanche. 
> For the East: Angelina, Lanana, or Panola.  For the
> Central: Matagorda 
> or Navasota.  For the West: Bexar, Atascosa, Uvalde,
> or Bandera.  For 
> the Northwest: Estacada.]
> ___________________
> 
> Note that the Olmsted trip occurred after the
> reduction of Texas by sale 
> of lands west and north of its modern boundaries to
> the federal 
> government as part of the Compromise of 1850.
> 
> On the attached map, I have illustrated the
> prospective boundaries as 
> delimited by Olmsted.  This division of Texas would
> produce six inland 
> and two marine tripoints in addition to those common
> to modern Texas. 
> All would be wet.  Those inland tripoints internal
> to modern Texas would 
> be within the Trinity, Brazos, and Colorado Rivers,
> and those along the 
> bounds of modern Texas would be within the Sabine
> and Red rivers and the 
> Rio Grande.  It is interesting to note that the
> proposed state 
> boundaries would split both of the modern major
> cities of Austin and 
> Fort Worth (the latter of which aptly bills itself
> as "where the West 
> begins.")
> 
> This particular proposal for the division (or
> multiplication) of Texas 
> into five states was derailed by the coming of the
> War Between the 
> States (1861-1865).  No congressional authorization
> for a division 
> existed in the Confederate States of America.  Of
> course, this is far 
> from the only historic proposal for the division of
> Texas.  For details 
> on others, both earlier and later, see
> http://tinyurl.com/3db3z .
> 
> Lowell G. McManus
> Leesville, Louisiana, USA 
 







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