pull up stakes

Move away, leave one's home, job, or country. For example, We've lived here for years, but now it's time to pull up stakes. This expression alludes to the stakes that mark property boundaries. [Early 1800s]

One of the earliest customs the colonials developed in America was pulling up stakes. Originally these were actual wooden stakes, driven into the ground to mark the boundaries of land allotments. Private property was a concept unknown to the American Indians but industriously pursued by the colonial governments, which later established Land Offices (1681) to handle the transactions.

To move entailed retrieving these markers, that is to pull up or pluck up stakes that had marked the previous residence. When we first encounter this phrase in a 1640 letter, it has already acquired a figurative use: "I am loth to hear of a stay [in New England], but am plucking up stakes with as much speed as I may." The author of the letter, Thomas Lechford, was an attorney who resided three or four years in Boston before returning to England.

In 1703, Samuel Sewall of Boston in his journal demonstrated the literal use of the phrase and also for the first time in the opposite expression, to set stakes: "I hear Mr. Sherman had run a Line within mine at Kibbee's...Went to my Bounds, asserted them...then ordered Kibbee to pull up the Stakes. Told Mr. Lynde's Tenants what my bounds were, and that within them was my Land; forwarn'd them of coming there to set any Stakes, or cut any Wood."

Perhaps it is symbolic of American restlessness that this first attestation of setting stakes comes so much later than plucking or pulling them up. Similarly, Settler (1695) came much later than adventurer as a name for the restless inhabitants of the original English-speaking colonies.

The verb has one meaning:

Meaning #1: remove oneself from an association with or participation in
  Synonyms: leave, depart