Prior to the framing of the Ordinance of 1787 a committee, of which Thomas Jefferson was a member, elaborated a plan for the government of the western lands, and this plan as originally presented proposed the division of the northwest country into ten states which were to be christened with sounding name reflecting the stilted taste for the classics that prevailed at that day. We quote from J. P. Dunn ("Indiana," pp. 180):

"The region west of Lake Michigan and north of parallel 45 was to form Cheronesus. That part of Wisconsin between parallels 43 and 45 was to be Michigan. Below this there were to be two states to every tow degrees of latitude, divided by a meridian line drawn through the rapids of the Ohio, except that all the territory east of a meridian line drawn through the mouth of the Great Kanawah was to be one state named Washington. Between parallels 41 and 43 the eastern state was Saratoga and the western Illinoia. Between parallel 39 and the Ohio, the eastern state was Pelisipia and the western Polypotamia. Indiana, therefore, would have bee divided up among these six states last named."