it of
immigration, and of civil and physical improvement, had not been idle.
After the peace the tide of population poured into the country in a
continual stream and the busy spirit of civilization was every where
making inroads into the ancient forests, and encroaching upon the
dominions of the hunter.

In order, however, that the reader may more readily comprehend the
causes which operated as grievances to Boone, and finally led him to
abandon Kentucky, and seek a home in regions more congenial, it will be
necessary to allude to the progress made in population, and the civil
polity, and incidents attending the settlement of the country.

The state of Kentucky was not surveyed by the government and laid off
into sections and townships as has been the case with all the lands
north of the Ohio. But the government of Virginia had issued land
warrants, or certificates entitling the holder to locate wherever he
might choose, the number of acres named in the warrant. They also grave
to actual settlers certain pre-emption rights to such lands as they
might occupy and improve by building a cabin, raising a crop, &c. The
holders of these warrants, after selecting the land which they intended
to cover, with their titles, were required to enter a survey and
description of the tracts selected, in the Land office, which had been
opened for the purpose, to be recorded there, for the information of
others, and to prevent subsequent holders of warrants from locating the
same lands. Yet notwithstanding these precautions, such was the careless
manner in which these surveys were made, that many illiterate persons,
ignorant of the forms of law, and the necessity of precision in the
specification and descriptions of the tracts on which they had laid
their warrants, made such loose and vague entries in the land office, as
to afford no accurate information to subsequent locators, who frequently
laid their warrants on the same tracts. It thus happened that the whole
or a part of almost every tract was covered with different and
conflicting titles--forming what have been aptly called 'shingle
titles'--overlaying and lapping upon each other, as shingles do upon the
roof of a building. In this way twice the existing acres of land were
sold and the door opened for endless controversy about boundaries and
titles. The following copy of an entry may serve as a specimen of the
vagueness of the lines, buts, and bounds of their claims, and as
account