The chances offered him by the fur trade were very
uncertain. If he lived in a sea-coast town, he might do something with
the clipper ships that ran to Europe and China. If he lived elsewhere,
his one chance of acquiring great wealth, and his best chance to acquire
even moderate wealth without long and plodding labor, was to speculate
in wild land.
Land Speculators
Accordingly the audacious and enterprising business men who would
nowadays go into speculation in stocks, were then forced into
speculation in land. Sometimes as individuals, sometimes as large
companies, they sought to procure wild lands on the Wabash, the Ohio,
the Cumberland, the Yazoo. In addition to the ordinary methods of
settlement by, or purchase from private persons, they endeavored to
procure grants on favorable terms from the national and State
legislatures, or even from the Spanish government. They often made a
regular practice of buying the land rights which had accrued in lieu of
arrears of pay to different bodies of Continental troops. They even at
times purchased a vague and clouded title from some Indian tribe. As
with most other speculative business investments, the great land
companies rarely realized for the originators and investors anything
like what was expected; and the majority were absolute failures in every
sense.
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