Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 59: Line 42 (1023)

 Merle arrived to find the "Forest City" obsessed by the pursuit of genial desperado Blinky Morgan, who was being sought for allegedly murdering a police detective while trying to rescue a member of his gang who'd been picked up on a fur-robbery charge.

**********

"Forest City"
Cleveland's nickname based on an Alex de Tocqueville description in Democracy in America from 1835. Like Blake's America a Prophecy, we have another text written concerning the state of America and democracy, observations of the New World's grand experiment. I read only a little on Tocqueville so my instant judgment of him as "the early 19th Century Ayn Rand" probably doesn't hold a lot of water.

"genial desperado"
The friendly criminal.

"Blinky Morgan"
The leader of a gang of fur thieves, summarized by Pynchon in the rest of the sentence. The dates of the Blinky Morgan fur robbery on January 26th, 1887 to the capture of Blinky on June 28th, 1887, overlap the dates of the Michelson-Morley Experiment (April to July, 1887). The town was obsessed with his pursuit because there was a reward of $16,000 dollars for Blinky and his gang's capture. Also maybe because he killed a detective but people probably hated detectives properly back then.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 59: Line 41 (1022)

 So despite days and nights of traveling, Merle had an eerie sense of not having left Connecticut—same plain gable-front houses, white Congregational church steeples, even stone fences—more Connecticut, just shifted west, was all.

**********

Even though the Connecticut land ceded to Pennsylvania had happened about one hundred years ago, the Connecticut settlers who had not been killed in the Pennamite-Yankee Wars were granted Pennsylvania citizenship and allowed to keep their lands. Which means Northern Pennsylvania has its roots in Connecticut culture.

"So despite days and nights of traveling"
Movement without movement. Like the vortex Heino Vanderjuice mentions earlier. Or like a pinwheel where movement and stasis are somehow combined. Lack of change means lack of movement, lack of advancement. What does this mean for Merle?

"an eerie sense"
This feels a bit paranormal, something akin to the opposite of unheimlich (un-unheimlich?), where Merle is feeling a sense of home but in a strange place (not heimlich because it is eerie and, so, un-unheimlich!). It's as if, as a person from Connecticut, the frontier does not exist for Merle because it's Connecticut all the way down.

"just shifted west"
Perhaps a reference to light and how it retains the same speed (or, in the analogy, the same architecture of Connecticut) but shifts from red to blue or blue to red depending on the viewer's relationship to the light's movement. This land looks like Connecticut but shifted west, or viewed from the future (Merle) looking into the past (or is it the opposite being that the land Merle has arrived in is newer than the land he came from?). Being that light is our major theme at the moment, the usage of "shifted" has to be referencing the properties of light, especially since this shift is based on what Merle is seeing around him. He's moving west, toward the future, but looking into the east, the past. I guess that's kind of a property of light too! That whatever we see is already past due to how long it takes light to hit our optical organs.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 59: Line 40 (1021)

 This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut had for years, since before American independence, been considered part of Connecticut's original land grant.

**********

I think this strip specifically might be what is known as the Western Reserve and possibly the strip through Pennsylvania was just known as "Settle Here at Your Own Risk"? Or maybe it's just because the land was given to Pennsylvania as America was being established and the Ohio portion was simply more Connecticut until the state ceded the land to the United States as part of the Northwest Territory in 1800. But not before Moses Cleaveland founded the worst city in the United States!
    Anyway, the university where Merle is headed was called the Case Western Reserve University except that Pynchon refers to it as the Case Institute, something it wouldn't be called for decades. Which is weird because calling it by its original name fits in so much better with Merle's story!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 59: Line 39 (1020)

 Merle had been born and raised in northwest Connecticut, a region of clockmakers, gunsmiths, and inspired thinkers, so his trip out to the Western Reserve was just a personal expression of Yankee migration generally.

**********

"northwest Connecticut"
The county of Litchfield, or possibly Hartford. Having grown up as a Bay Area resident in California, I know that looking at a map and describing the area of the state I grew up in as "Northern California" can seem to be at odds, so I won't judge if the people of Connecticut want to call Hartford County "northwest Connecticut."

"a region of clockmakers, gunsmiths, and inspired thinkers"
Seeing as how gunsmith is included here and assuming Pynchon means Samuel Colt who was from Hartford, it strengthens the argument for northwest Connecticut being Hartford County. Not to mention how every mention of Merle in Connecticut has been in relation to Hartford and Yale. Oliver Winchester was also from Connecticut but New Haven County rather than Hartford and New Haven is decidedly southern Connecticut.
    Eli Terry is probably the clockmaker, also from Hartford County although he later moved to Northbury (later Plymouth) in Litchfield County so maybe I'll just believe northwest Connecticut applies to both counties. Apparently his work ignited the industrial revolution so that's probably important.
    I don't know who the inspired thinkers might be there are too many people who could fall under that category. J.P. Morgan is from Hartford so we'll just go with him as the best example since he'll probably be important later.

"Western Reserve"
The original charter for Connecticut from 1662 marked its western border as the "South Sea" (Pacific Ocean). So Connecticut was a long-ass state. Almost immediately there were conflicts with New York which were ultimately resolved so that the long stretch of land to the Pacific was cut off from the rest of Connecticut by New York's dangly bit. The portion of Connecticut west of New York was called the Western Reserve. Unluckily, Pennsylvania also had claims to this land via the Dutch and also because it was sold to them by the Iroquois which seems like a reasonable trick to play on the European invaders.

"personal expression of Yankee migration generally"
Merle is headed toward Cleveland, Ohio, which would have one time been a part of Connecticut according to the original charter and the Western Reserve. So Merle's trip can be seen as merely an example of another Connecticut Yankee heading out to settle Connecticut's western frontier. He refers to himself as "Yankee" to remind the reader of the Pennamite-Yankee War fought between the people of Pennsylvania and the people of Connecticut over this chunk of land. I use the verb "remind" so it seems like I once knew about this interstate war but had forgotten about it. And maybe that's true and I didn't just learn about it this late in life because how am I supposed to remember what I have forgotten?