1To George Washington from Colonel Daniel Brodhead, 3 May 1779 (Washington Papers)
This “great emigration” was in part the result of two acts passed in the spring of 1779 by the Virginia general assembly, generally known together as the “Virginia Land Law” or the “Occupying Claimant Law”: “An Act for adjusting and settling the titles of claimers to unpatented lands under the present and former government, previous to the establishment...