How were property lines known / created back in the old days when huge lots of land were owned / claimed?
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Generally speaking it was a mess. Deeds were often very vague and open to interpretation, for example “from the boulder to the tree and all the way up the hill” or “standing on X location, everything you can see is part of the property” or “…up until the stream/creek”.
As you can imagine, such descriptions were incredibly vague, deeds were also lost, forged, or some were never made at all officially, and of course the descriptions were open to interpretation and as such many disputes occurred on the ground, as people constantly moved their fences or straight up built in neighboring plots and pretty much sucked them in. Basically, unless you were ever vigilant and ever present in maintaining your land, it would be taken from you one way or another. Then we have the fact that deeds based on characteristics if the landscape which may change were very easily disputed, and we also have the fact that over the years depending on the history of each region, land could be claimed or lost depending on the system, or lack thereof, in place that determined land ownership. A war or a change in government could easily see vast stretches of land being simply taken by the governing authorities and given to others.
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