Wouldnt it have been easier to line everything up in a grid form?
I know a lot of the places in the east went off rivers and mountains and stuff but why not just make it straight lines as they moved west or incorporated new states?
Every US state (except Hawai’i) includes a straight-line boundary. No European country does.
The states weren't all laid out at once, but came into being over two centuries. The interesting individual stories of how boundaries were set and changed is told in U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1212, Boundaries of the United States and the Several States. Mark Stein's book called How the States Got Their Shapes is an easier read, though it curiously omits any mention whatever of the Washington Meridian.