A RESOLUTION relative to bottom lands of the Kaskaskia river.
1Delegation instructed to procure donation of lands on Kaskaskia.
Resolved by the Senate, (the House of Representatives concurring herein,) That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested to use their influence to procure
the passage of a law making a donation of every alternate section of land (or fractional
part thereof) belonging to the United States, lying within the immediate bottom lands
on either side of the Kaskaskia river, from Shelbyville in Shelby county, to its confluence with the Mississippi river, for the purpose of improving the navigation of said Kaskaskia river.2
Transmitted January 6, 1837.
1Benjamin Bond introduced this resolution in the Senate on December 22, 1836. The Senate adopted it, and on December 29 the House of Representatives concurred. On January 6, the Senate delivered the resolution to Governor Joseph Duncan for his signature.
Illinois House Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 91, 136, 175; Illinois Senate Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 89, 129-30, 156, 160.
2John Reynolds introduced this resolution in the House of Representatives on January 23, 1837. The House referred it to the Committee on Roads and Canals,
which took no action. In 1822, Congress granted lands to the state for the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, setting a precedent that prompted a number of petitions in the 1820s and 1830s for
land to improve the navigation of the Kaskaskia and other rivers. Congress, however, largely ignored these requesting, giving attention
only to the Mississippi River.
John H. Krenkel, Illinois Internal Improvements 1818-1848 (Cedar Rapids, IA: Torch, 1958), 13-14, 15-16; House Journal. 24rd Cong., 2nd sess., 23 January 1837, 276.
Printed Document, 1 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Tenth General Assembly (Vandalia, IL: William Walters, 1837), 337, GA Session: 10-1,