Sometimes--and who could blame the surveyor?--when
the pony was "feeling his oats," he might step a little higher and
farther, and in that case the beneficiary of the scrip might get a
thousand or two more acres in his survey than the scrip called for.
But look at the boundless leagues the state had to spare! However, no
one ever had to complain of the pony under-stepping. Nearly every
old survey in the state contained an excess of land.
In later years, when the state became more populous, and land values
increased, this careless work entailed incalculable trouble, endless
litigation, a period of riotous land-grabbing, and no little
bloodshed. The land-sharks voraciously attacked these excesses in
the old surveys, and filed upon such portions with new scrip as
unappropriated public domain. Wherever the identifications of the
old tracts were vague, and the corners were not to be clearly
established, the Land Office would recognize the newer locations as
valid, and issue title to the locators. Here was the greatest
hardship to be found. These old surveys, taken from the pick of the
land, were already nearly all occupied by unsuspecting and peaceful
settlers, and thus their titles were demolished, and the choice was
placed before them either to buy their land over at a double price or
to vacate it, with their families and personal belongings,
immediately.
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