tion served as the rallying-place for the country round
about, the stronghold in which the people dwelt during time of danger;
and later on, when all danger had long ceased, it often remained in
changed form, growing into the chief town of the district. Each settler
had his own farm besides, often a long way from the fort, and it was on
this that he usually intended to make his permanent home. This system
enabled the inhabitants to combine for defence, and yet to take up the
large tracts of four to fourteen hundred acres,[16] to which they were
by law entitled. It permitted them in time of peace to live well apart,
with plenty of room between, so that they did not crowd one another--a
fact much appreciated by men in whose hearts the spirit of extreme
independence and self-reliance was deeply ingrained. Thus the settlers
were scattered over large areas, and, as elsewhere in the southwest, the
county and not the town became the governmental unit. The citizens even
of the smaller governmental divisions acted through representatives,
instead of directly, as in the New England town-meetings.[17] The centre
of county government was of course the county court-house.

Henderson, having established a land agency at Boonsborough, at once
proceeded to deed to the Transylvania colonists entry certificates of
surveys of many hundred thousand acres. Most of the colonists were
rather doubtful whether these certificates would ultimately prove of any
value, and preferred to rest their claims on their original cabin
rights; a wise move on their part, though in the end the Virginia
Legislature confirmed Henderson's sales in so far as they had been made
to actual settlers. All the surveying was of course of the very rudest
kind. Only a skilled woodsman could undertake the work in such a
country; and accordingly much of it devolved on Boon, who ran the lines
as well as he could, and marked the trees with his own initials, either
by powder or else with his knife.[18] The State could not undertake to
make the surveys itself, so it authorized the individual settler to do
so. This greatly promoted the rapid settlement of the country, making it
possible to deal with land as a commodity, and outlining the various
claims; but the subsequent and inevitable result was that the sons of
the settlers reaped a crop of endless confusion and litigation.

It is worth mentioning that the Transylvania company opened a store at
Boonsborough. Powder and lead,