The rage for land speculation, however, which had continued, even in the stormiest days of the Revolution, grew tenfold in strength after Yorktown, when peace at no distant day was assured.

The wealthy land speculators of the seaboard counties made agreements of various sorts with the more prominent frontier leaders in the effort to secure large tracts of good country.

The system of surveying was much better than in Kentucky, but it was still by no means perfect, as each man placed his plot wherever he chose, first describing the boundary marks rather vaguely, and leaving an illiterate old hunter to run the lines.
Moreover, the intending settler frequently absented himself for several months, or was temporarily chased away by the Indians, while the official record books were most imperfect.

In consequence, many conflicts ensued.

The frontiersmen settled on any spot of good land they saw fit, and clung to it with defiant tenacity, whether or not it afterwards proved to be on a tract previously granted to some land company or rich private individual who had never been a hundred miles from the sea-coast.