first 15 states years they were found

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    Virginia

    It was settled on June 25, 1607 and was founded on June 25, 1788.
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    New York

    It was settled on July 26, 1614 and was founded on July 26, 1788.
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    Massachusetts

    It was settled on Febuary 6, 1620 and was founded on Febuary 6, 1788.
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    New Hampshire

    It was settled on June 21, 1623 and was founded on June 21, 1788.
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    Connecticut

    Connecticut was found in 1788, but was settled on 1634
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    Maryland

    It was settled on April 27, 1634 and was founded on April 27, 1788.
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    Rhode Island

    It was settled on May 29, 1636 and was founded on May 29, 1790.
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    Delaware

    Delaware was found in 1787, but was settled on in 1638
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    North Carolina

    It was settled on November 21, 1660 and was founded on November 21, 1789.
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    New Jersey

    New Jersey was found in 1787, but was settled on 1660
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    South Carolina

    It was settled on May 23, 1670 and was founded on May 23, 1788.
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    Pennsylvania

    Pennsylvania was found in 1787, but was settled on 1682
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    Vermont

    It was settled on March 4, 1724 and was founded on March 4, 1791
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    Georgia

    Georgia was found in 1788, but was settled on 1733
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    Kentucky

  • Who founded Virginia

    In 1606, a group of wealthy London businessmen petitioned King James I for a charter to establish a colony in the New World. They formed the Virginia Company and set out to establish a permanent English settlement in the Americas.
  • Who founded New York

    One year later Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians for trinkets worth about 60 Dutch guilders and founded the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (now New York City), which was surrendered to the English in 1664.
  • Who founded Massachusetts

  • Who founded New Hampshire

    The colony that became the state of New Hampshire was founded on the division in 1629 of a land grant given seven years previously by the Council for New England to Captain John Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges (who founded Maine).
  • Who founded Connecticut

    Thomas Hooker, a prominent Puritan minister, and Governor John Haynes of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who led 100 people to present day Hartford in 1636, are often considered the founders of the Connecticut colony.
  • Who founded Maryland

    Cecil Calvert, 2nd Lord of Baltimore, founded Maryland in 1632. Cecil's father, George Calvert had received a royal charter for the land from King Charles I. The new colony was named after Henrietta Maria, the wife the king.
  • Who founded Rhode Island

    Rhode Island colony was founded near present-day Newport, on what is now commonly called Aquidneck Island, the largest of several islands in Narragansett Bay. Providence Plantations was the name of the colony founded by Roger Williams in the area now known as the city of Providence.
  • Who founded Delaware

    Peter Minuit
    In 1638 New Sweden, a Swedish trading post and colony, was established at Fort Christina (now in Wilmington) by Peter Minuit at the head of a group of Swedes, Finns and Dutch. The colony of New Sweden lasted for 17 years.
  • Who founded North Carolina

    As early as 1650, settlers from the Virginia colony moved into the area of Albemarle Sound. By 1663, King Charles II of England granted a charter to start a new colony on the North American continent; it generally established North Carolina's borders.
  • Who founded New Jersey

    In the year 1664, the Duke of York, proprietary of the province of New York, assigned to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret the tract of country to the east of the Delaware River, and extending to the Hudson and the Atlantic.
  • Who founded South Carolina

    South Carolina, part of the original Province of Carolina, was founded in 1663 when King Charles II gave the land to eight noble men known as The Lords Proprietors. At the time, the province included both North Carolina and South Carolina. North and South Carolina became separate royal colonies in 1729.
  • Who founded Pennsylvania

    The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was founded in English North America by William Penn on March 4, 1681 as dictated in a royal charter granted by King Charles II.
  • Who founded Vermont

    The Vermont region was explored and claimed for France by Samuel de Champlain in 1609, and the first French settlement was established at Fort Ste. Anne in 1666. The first English settlers moved into the area in 1724 and built Fort Dummer on the site of present-day Brattleboro.
  • Who founded Kentucky

    Kentucky was granted statehood in 1792, becomingthe first U.S. state west of the Appalachian Mountains. Frontiersman Daniel Boone was one of Kentucky’s most prominent explorers and many immigrants followed the trail he blazed through the Cumberland Gap, known as the Wilderness Road. Although it sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, the population was deeply divided, and many Kentucky residents fought for the North. Known primarily as an agricultural area into the 20th century, Kentuck
  • How did Virginia get its name

    Virginia. Named for Queen Elizabeth I of England (known as the Virgin Queen), who granted Walter Raleigh the charter to form a colony north of Spanish Florida.
  • How did New York get its name

    The English took over the colony in 1664 during the second Anglo-Dutch War. They changed the name to New York, to honor the Duke of York, who later became King James II of England. The Dutch surrendered Nieuw Amsterdam without fighting.
  • How did Massachusetts get its name

    The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Bay Colony that preceded it were named after the area's indigenous people, the Massachusett. The tribe's name translates to "near the great hill," referring to the Blue Hills southwest of Boston.
  • How did New Hampshire get its name

    John Mason named the area he received in a land grant after the English county of Hampshire, where he had lived for several years as a child. Mason invested heavily in the clearing of land and building of houses in New Hampshire, but died, in England, before ever venturing to the new world to see his property.
  • How did Connecticut get its name

    The state is named after the Connecticut River, which was named quinnitukqut by the Mohegans who lived in the eastern upper Thames valley. In their Algonquian language, the word means “long river place” or “beside the long tidal river.”
  • How did Maryland get its name

    The English colony of Maryland was named for Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of King Charles I, who granted Maryland's charter. Mariana was also proposed as a name, but Maryland's founder, Sir Lord Baltimore, believed in the divine right of kings and turned the name down because it reminded him of the Spanish Jesuit and historian Juan de Mariana, who taught that the will of the people was higher than the law of tyrants.
  • How did Rhode Island get its name

    First used in a letter by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, in which he compares an island near the mouth of Narragansett Bay (a bay on the north side of Rhode Island Sound) to the island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean. The explanation preferred by the state government is that Dutch explorer Adrian Block named the area Roodt Eylandt (“red island”) in reference to the red clay that lined the shore and the name was later anglicized under British rule.
  • How did Delaware get its name

    Delaware is named for the Delaware River and Delaware Bay. These, in turn, were named for Sir Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, the first colonial governor of Virginia, who traveled the river in 1610. The title is likely ultimately derived from the Old French de la werre (“of the war” or a warrior).
  • How did North Carolina get its name

    King Charles II of England, who granted a charter to start a colony in modern-day North Carolina, named the land in honor of his father, Charles I. Carolina comes from Carolus, the Latin form of Charles.
  • How did New Jersey get its name

    New Jersey was named for Jersey, the largest of the British Channel Islands, by its founders Sir John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. Carteret was born on Jersey and served as its Lieutenant Governor for several years.
  • How did South Carolina get its name

    King Charles II of England, who granted a charter to start a colony in modern-day South Carolina, named the land in honor of his father, Charles I. Carolina comes from Carolus, the Latin form of Charles.
  • How did Pennsylvania get its name

    Named in honor of Admiral William Penn. The land was granted to Penn’s son, William Penn, to pay off a debt owed by the crown to the senior Penn. The name is made up of Penn + sylva (“woods” ) + nia (a noun suffix) to get “Penn's Woodland.” The younger Penn was embarrassed by the name and feared that people would think he had named the colony after himself, but King Charles would not rename the land.
  • How did Vermont get its name

    Derived from the French words vert (“green”) and mont (“mountain”). Samuel Peters claimed that he christened the land with that name in 1763 while standing on top of a mountain, saying, “The new name is Vert-Mont, in token that her mountains and hills shall be ever green and shall never die."
  • How did Kentucky get its name

    There is no consensus on where Kentucky's name comes from. Among the possibilities, though, are various Indians words, all from the Iroquoian language group, meaning "meadow," "prairie," "at the prairie," "at the field," "land of tomorrow," "river bottom," and "the river of blood."