How did this government compare with that of the Virginia county?
Section 2. _Settlement of the Public Domain._
[Sidenote: Westward movement of population.]
The westward movement of population in the United States has for the
most part followed the parallels of latitude. Thus Virginians and
North Carolinians, crossing the Alleghanies, settled Kentucky and
Tennessee; thus people from New England filled up the central and
northern parts of New York, and passed on into Michigan and Wisconsin;
thus Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois received many settlers from New York
and Pennsylvania. In the early times when Kentucky was settled, the
pioneer would select a piece of land wherever he liked, and after
having a rude survey made, and the limits marked by "blazing" the
trees with a hatchet, the survey would be put on record in the state
land-office. So little care was taken that half a dozen patents would
sometimes be given for the same tract. Pieces of land, of all shapes
and sizes, lay between the patents.... Such a system naturally begat
no end of litigation, and there remain in Kentucky curious vestiges of
it to this day. [5]
[Footnote 5: Hinsdale, _Old Northwest_, p.
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