In a history I'm reading they mention that by 1818 the Cumberland Road aka the National Road was carrying a steady stream of settlers into the western territories. Kentucky was filling up, and newcomers were attracted to the wilderness north of the Ohio River. They quote an English immigrant, Morris Birkbeck, who wrote this description of the traffic: "Old America seems to be breaking up and moving westward. We are seldom out of sight, as we travel on this grand track towards the Ohio, of family groups, behind and before us, some with a view to a particular spot; close to a brother, perhaps, or a friend, who has gone before, and reported well of the country. Many, like ourselves, when they arrive in the wilderness, will find no lodge prepared for them......" They also cover the fact that, in the rush to settle Kentucky, between the various land speculators and their various ties to the British and the eventual USA, dealings with the Indians, and faulty survey work, along with faulty records, many of the original settlers who hacked out a homestead in Kentucky, had to fight in the courts to keep their property. Many of them ended up being renters on lands they thought they owned because the courts favored the rich speculators in their decisions. The country North of the Ohio was opened on the "Wisconsin Rule". The land was surveyed into townships before is was sold. After their bad experiences in Kentucky, this had to be a powerful incentive to pull stakes and move across the river.