60 
Indiana University 
from 1819 to 1823, and afterward when on account of its de- 
cisions on land claims the powers of the Supreme Court of the 
United States became an issue, nevertheless, there was con- 
stant friction and irritation on account of them almost from 
the time Kentucky became a state. Virginia made few ac- 
curate preliminary surveys before granting land to would-be 
settlers or land companies, virtually allowing them to make 
their own. This led to many difficulties. A poor man, per- 
haps, wanted but a small farm, which he promised to pay for 
at an agreed price an acre. He would survey the land, build 
a cabin, and start a clearing. A land speculator, planning to 
seize all unappropriated land in a given area, would survey 
many thousands of acres at once, get a patent for the land, 
and encompass several settlers’ claims. Collins says that 
sometimes as many as five or six patents were granted for 
the same piece of land, and an occupant-settler often had to 
buy two or three times more land than he wanted from spec- 
ulators and other claimants or lose his home and labor. 
Of the innumerable conflicts over land titles, and of all 
the peculiar shapes, sizes, and boundaries these titles defined, 
neither the Virginia nor Kentucky land-offices took any notice. 
Kentucky only guaranteed the land entry if there was no pre- 
vious valid title. A vast amount of litigation was caused by 
this quick but careless system of land disposal. Each holder 
of a land warrant located his claim virtually where he wished. 
Shaler asserts there is still land in Kentucky which has never 
been surveyed and which is without ownership, but there is 
probably little such land now and that in the most remote 
places. Particularly since the recent coal and oil develop- 
ments in the state, it has frequently happened that thru this 
early land-granting medley, much land never owned by anyone 
has been seized in time without title by owners of contiguous 
land; also, on account of perishable markers like trees and 
stumps, many farms today have no exact boundaries and 
have, therefore, only an approximate acreage. Kentucky had 
no federal aid or control, as other states had, in procuring an 
effective land-survey system and good land laws, except in 
the comparatively small area purchased west of the Tennessee 
River, and lacking these the land survey system of today, 
Topsy-like, just grew up. 
3® Collins, History of Kentucky ^ II, 633. 
Shaler, Kentucky, a Pioneer Covimonivealth, 49-52. 
