Question - Pynchon vs. Stearns 1846

[Monte Davis]

Jill sez:

> ...dd you really know the extent to 
> which land ownership shaped the relations between the first 
> couple three generations of Pynchons in MA and CT and their 
> countrymen? 

Not just there. Litigation reflects the fact that land speculation was *the*
American get-rich-quick mode for the first 300 years, and the origin of more
American fortunes (and cyclical busts) than any other activity --
agriculture and import/export included -- for the first 200. It wasn't
happenstance that young Geo. Washington went from surveyor scoping out the
prospects beyond the Cumberlands to wealthy speculator in blocks of the
"Northwest" Territories.