The name "Vandalia" is associated with West Virginia.

Vandalia (colony) - Wikipediad

History | The Order of Vandalia | West Virginia University

the connections between Vandalia and the Mountain State, and Jacobs quickly accepted their recommendations that the award bear that name. “Vandalia,” it is true, exists as a town in seven states; but it was in present-day West Virginia that the name and the vision it represented were to become the most familiar. It almost became the 14th British colony, and it would have been a big one. It would have been the only colony without a seacoast, and it would have been based on vast acres of timber, water resources and plentiful wild game; it has been described as the biggest real estate venture in American history.

Despite opposition from such diverse and powerful individuals as Virginia’s Governor Dunmore and Col. George Washington (who had their own land-grant dreams), and an unlikely coalition within the House of Commons in London, the Vandalia scheme came within a few days or weeks of success, only to fail because of an event 600 miles away which can only be described as unpredicted and unpredictable.

Trappers and hunters on the frontier had been periodically raided and robbed of their cabins and furs by the French and Indians during the seven-year struggle that ended with peace in 1763, and they petitioned for redress first in the form of money, later in the form of grant. They organized themselves into companies or groups that today would be called developers or speculators – and not necessarily in the best sense of the word. They hired lawyers in Philadelphia to carry their cause to the Crown. And they had powerful backing with which to counter Dunmore, Washington and others. They had Benjamin Franklin and his son, William, later royal governor of New Jersey; they had distinguished Wharton family of Philadelphia; Sir William Johnson, superintendent of Indian affairs for the King in the northern colonies; the influential Walpoles of London; and equally powerful coalitions within the House of Commons, the House of Lords, Virginia’s House of Burgesses, and the King’s circle of advisors. (The adage that “politics make strange bedfellows” did not originate with the Vandalia proposal, but it certainly applied.)

The grant they first sought would have been called Indiana; a section later added was known as the Walpole Purchase; and at all stages of the scheme – which lasted from the mid-1760’s until 1773 – from one-third to two-thirds of what is now West Virginia would have been included.

In its final form Vandalia would have begun at Pittsburgh, come down the Monongahela to the Mason-Dixon Line, then east along the northern border of Monongalia and Preston counties to the crest of Allegheny Mountain, which it would have followed generally southwest through the Lewisburg sector into the Cumberland Gap country of eastern Tennessee, then west of the Kentucky River, down that stream to the Ohio, and finally back up the Beautiful River to Pittsburgh.

The petitioners had come to recognize the strong influence of Queen Charlotte on her husband, George III, and knew that she was deeply interested in her genealogy, and that she proudly traced her blood lines back to those colorful rascals, the Vandals. So they discarded the Indian label, named their proposed colony Vandalia to flatter the Queen, and gained a powerful ally. Vandalia it would be, and the capital would be Point Pleasant. Step by step, the petition was approved at every governmental level. It had cleared the desk of the top legal authorities, and was prepared for the King’s approval.

But in one of history’s classic examples of poor timing (at least from our viewpoint) Sam Adams had his lads – most of them rough-and-ready member of the Sons of Liberty – chose this particular moment to dress themselves as Indians, and show their disdain for the tax on tea – and for the British colonial policy in general – by boarding a ship in Boston Harbor and dumping its cargo of tea overboard. News of the deed reached London just about the time the now fully approved Vandalia Charter was probably on its way to the King for his signature. But the monarch by now had had more than enough of the colonists’ rebellious attitudes and actions. He certainly was not about to cooperate with any more of their requests, and surely was not going to grant another colonial charter. The rest is history.

Efforts to perpetuate the name – and the geographic entity – persisted until after the United States was formed. The scheme died in 1773, but the dream did not; and when statehood was granted 90 years later, there were those who would have preferred “Vandalia” to “West Virginia” as the name of the 35th state.