So, I have been tossing around for a while the concept of a setting with a US state of Long Island (including Brooklyn, LI), in part driven by wanting to mess around with alternate transit and particularly rail in what would (if it existed) be the most densely populated state in the US. At about 2,100 people per square kilometer, the state's population density would exceed New Jersey (the next highest) by a factor of 4, with even the historical Long Island's least dense county (Suffolk, the east end of the island) exceeding the average density of New Jersey, 632 to 488/km^2.
...So naturally, in pursuit of this by the simplest PoD, I hit on the notion of the family of the Earl Stirling (William Alexander, 1567-1640 OTL) retaining their grant of the island, rather than selling it to Connecticut or other colonies, and leading it to eventually be included in New York. This was inspired a bit by listening to Mike Duncan's Revolutions season about the English Civil War, and a bit by "The Bloody Man" by Ed Thomas--it seems like a Scottish Presbyterian colony in the Middle Colonies (at least to the extent Pennsylvania was Quaker, or Maryland was Catholic, in the sense of "major minority, and dominant politically, if not strictly a majority") would be interesting as something to play around with during the English Civil Wars, the aftermath of the Darien scheme (where a Scottish colony in the New World would give a place for those headed to or fleeing from the failed colony a preference on where to head as an alternative), the highland clearances and the Irish (and Scottish) potato famines. It seems interesting to imagine a US state where Gaelic is in common use as a second language, if still behind English.
The broad sketch of the thing is that the Alexander line of the Earls Stirling manage to hang around after the decisions to keep control of the colony. In the draft form, this may begin with better luck for William Alexander the Younger, who had helped establish the abortive Scottish colonies on Nova Scotia and who died rather suddenly historically in 1638 for reasons which I haven't fully tracked down. Surviving longer, he becomes the Earl after his father's death and continues the colonial push, finding better luck due to past experience and better local conditions. Inheritance and dynasty ensues, with the Earls of Stirling establishing a capitol of New Stirling at either the historical Port Jefferson or someplace around the historical Oyster Bay or Huntington Bay. Additionally, a few other Scottish place names get "New" stapled to them scattered around the territory. With the colony a going concern for 20 years or so by the time New Amsterdam ends up being ceded, the current Earl Stirling manages to stake a claim to the whole island, even the area west of the Treaty of Hartford line, leading to Brooklyn and Queens being formally added to the colony, and incidentally leading to Staten Island ending up in the colony of New Jersey.
One idea I like but am still smoothing the edges of is the real historical figure of William Alexander, Lord Stirling who IOTL tried to claim the (by then defunct) title of Earl Stirling and managed in Scottish but not English courts. When that failed, he set up an estate in New Jersey to grow wine grapes and live the life of a Scottish lord in exile, and ended up in contact with enough American notables including Washington that he became a somewhat prominent Revolutionary general. My thought is that something similar happens here, except that instead of a claimant to a defunct line he's a younger son or something, so setting up a lavish estate in the family lands on Long Island to pursue his hobbies of vineyard grapes and a friendship with prominent American notables like Washington or Franklin is allowed. Like OTL, his American sympathies are stoked, and he ends up as a Revolutionary general. Either shortly before, shortly after, or perhaps during the war the rest of the family has a run of bad health, and he ends up inheriting the title just in time to renounce it at the end of the war and the founding of the new nation...though of course not renouncing all of the Alexander family's personal property on the colony, leaving the family on par with the Van Rensselaer or Stuyvesant families. (Which then gives me a throughline for colonial development, plus the Alexanders of Long Island and their personal fortune can help smooth over any wacky transit schemes I have in mind like a rail tunnel under the Race from Eastern Long Island to New London, CT sometime in the early 1910s or 1920s.)
It's a little out of my usual wheelhouse of space-themed timelines, so I'd end up needing to do a lot of research about Scottish demographics, the growth of New England and Dutch colonies around the 1640s to 1700, inheritance traditions, Presbyterian-Puritan dynamics in the colonies, the Darien Scheme, the Highland clearances, and such, but does this sound like it might be of interest to people, or just silly on the face of it?
...So naturally, in pursuit of this by the simplest PoD, I hit on the notion of the family of the Earl Stirling (William Alexander, 1567-1640 OTL) retaining their grant of the island, rather than selling it to Connecticut or other colonies, and leading it to eventually be included in New York. This was inspired a bit by listening to Mike Duncan's Revolutions season about the English Civil War, and a bit by "The Bloody Man" by Ed Thomas--it seems like a Scottish Presbyterian colony in the Middle Colonies (at least to the extent Pennsylvania was Quaker, or Maryland was Catholic, in the sense of "major minority, and dominant politically, if not strictly a majority") would be interesting as something to play around with during the English Civil Wars, the aftermath of the Darien scheme (where a Scottish colony in the New World would give a place for those headed to or fleeing from the failed colony a preference on where to head as an alternative), the highland clearances and the Irish (and Scottish) potato famines. It seems interesting to imagine a US state where Gaelic is in common use as a second language, if still behind English.
The broad sketch of the thing is that the Alexander line of the Earls Stirling manage to hang around after the decisions to keep control of the colony. In the draft form, this may begin with better luck for William Alexander the Younger, who had helped establish the abortive Scottish colonies on Nova Scotia and who died rather suddenly historically in 1638 for reasons which I haven't fully tracked down. Surviving longer, he becomes the Earl after his father's death and continues the colonial push, finding better luck due to past experience and better local conditions. Inheritance and dynasty ensues, with the Earls of Stirling establishing a capitol of New Stirling at either the historical Port Jefferson or someplace around the historical Oyster Bay or Huntington Bay. Additionally, a few other Scottish place names get "New" stapled to them scattered around the territory. With the colony a going concern for 20 years or so by the time New Amsterdam ends up being ceded, the current Earl Stirling manages to stake a claim to the whole island, even the area west of the Treaty of Hartford line, leading to Brooklyn and Queens being formally added to the colony, and incidentally leading to Staten Island ending up in the colony of New Jersey.
One idea I like but am still smoothing the edges of is the real historical figure of William Alexander, Lord Stirling who IOTL tried to claim the (by then defunct) title of Earl Stirling and managed in Scottish but not English courts. When that failed, he set up an estate in New Jersey to grow wine grapes and live the life of a Scottish lord in exile, and ended up in contact with enough American notables including Washington that he became a somewhat prominent Revolutionary general. My thought is that something similar happens here, except that instead of a claimant to a defunct line he's a younger son or something, so setting up a lavish estate in the family lands on Long Island to pursue his hobbies of vineyard grapes and a friendship with prominent American notables like Washington or Franklin is allowed. Like OTL, his American sympathies are stoked, and he ends up as a Revolutionary general. Either shortly before, shortly after, or perhaps during the war the rest of the family has a run of bad health, and he ends up inheriting the title just in time to renounce it at the end of the war and the founding of the new nation...though of course not renouncing all of the Alexander family's personal property on the colony, leaving the family on par with the Van Rensselaer or Stuyvesant families. (Which then gives me a throughline for colonial development, plus the Alexanders of Long Island and their personal fortune can help smooth over any wacky transit schemes I have in mind like a rail tunnel under the Race from Eastern Long Island to New London, CT sometime in the early 1910s or 1920s.)
It's a little out of my usual wheelhouse of space-themed timelines, so I'd end up needing to do a lot of research about Scottish demographics, the growth of New England and Dutch colonies around the 1640s to 1700, inheritance traditions, Presbyterian-Puritan dynamics in the colonies, the Darien Scheme, the Highland clearances, and such, but does this sound like it might be of interest to people, or just silly on the face of it?