Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

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Sec[Section]. 1 Be it Enacted by the people of the State of Illinois represented in the General Assembly, That, from and after the passage of this act Elizabeth Middleton of Clinton County shall be and she is hereby authorized to keep a ferry across the Kaskaskia River, from the west bank of said River, on the south west quarter of the north west quarter of section N^o Sixteen in Township One, south of Range Five, west of the third principal meridian in Illinois, for the period of five years.

Sec. 2. The said Elizabeth Middleton shall pay to the School commissioner of Clinton County for the use of the inhabitants of the aforesaid Township, an annual tax of One Hundred Dollars as a ren[t] for said ferry priveledge, to secure the payment of which the said Elizabeth Middleton shall before entering upon said ferry priveledge, enter into bond with security to the commissioner aforesaid, for the use aforesaid, in the sum of One Hundred Dollars, the annual tax aforesaid to be paid at the expiration of one year from the date thereof and so on each succeeding year until the expiration of the term aforesaid.

Sec. 3. The inhabitants of said Township living within the county of Washington and on the west side of the Kaskaskia, are hereby empowered upon the same terms and in the same manner that the inhabitants of Townships are allowed to become incorporated by the act entitled “An Act to Amend the several Acts in relation to Common Schools, approved March 4^th 1837” by a majority of said inhabitants voting to become incorporated; and the trustees, elected, and treasurer appointed by them, shall have and exercise all the power

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conferred by said act on trustees and treasurers of Townships. Whenever the inhabitants of the Township residing within the county aforesaid, shall become incorporated by electing trustees and a treasurer, it shall be the duty of the school commissioner of the County to deliver over to the treasurer aforesaid all bond and monies belonging to said inhabitants.

Sec. 4. The said Treasurer shall thereafter take bond and security in the same manner as the school commissioner by this act is required to do, and at the expiration of the term aforesaid, the trustees for fraction of Township.

Sec. 5 The funds arising from the renting or letting of said ferry priveledge, or so much thereof as shall remain at any time unappropriated, to the payment of teachers or other school purposes within said Township aforesaid, shall be loaned out at interest as is provided by the several school laws now in force in this state.

Sec. 6. The County Commissioners Court of Clinton County shall fix such rates of ferryage for said ferry from time to time as they shall deem just and right.

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No 255

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H R
A Bill for “An act to authorize Elizabeth Middleton to Keep a ferry across the Kaskaskia River on Sec 16 in T[Township] 1 S[South] R[Range] 5 W[West] and for other purposes

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[03]/[04]/[1839]
Engrossed,

1On February 5, 1839, Joseph Huey in the House of Representatives presented the petition of citizens of Clinton County, requesting an act to allow Elizabeth Middleton to establish a ferry across the Kaskaskia River. The House referred the bill to a select committee. In response to this petition, Huey from the aforesaid select committee introduced HB 305 in the House on February 16. The House referred the bill to the Committee on the Judiciary. The Committee on the Judiciary reported back the bill on February 28, recommending its rejection, and the House referred the bill to the Committee on Claims. The Committee on Claims reported back the bill on March 2 with amendments, in which the House concurred. The House engrossed the bill, but the session ended before the House could read it a third time.
Journal of the House of Representatives of the Eleventh General Assembly of the State of Illinois, at Their First Session, Begun and Held in the Town of Vandalia, December 3, 1838 (Vandalia,IL: William Walters, 1838), 346, 418, 549, 588, 606.