Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force, Dec.[December] 10, 1839.

AN ACT to amend an act entitled “An act to encourage the killing of Wolves,” approved February 15, 1837.
1

Bounty for destroying wolves

To be paid out of State treasury

Person to produce scalp

Oath

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That every person who shall kill any wolf or wolves in this State. shall received the following bounty, to wit: for each wolf, known and denominated the Big wolf of six months old and upwards, the sum of two dollars; for each wolf of the same kind under six months old, the sum of one dollar; for each wolf known and denominated, the Prairie wolf, of any age, the sum of one dollar, to be paid out of the State Treasury, on the certificate of the clerk of the county commissioners’ court, where such wolf or wolves were taken and killed. The person claiming such reward shall produce the scalp or scalps, with the ears thereon, within ninety days after the same was taken and killed, to the clerk of the county commissioners’ court within the county where such wolf or wolves were taken and killed, who shall administer to the said person the following oath or affirmation, viz: You do solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be) that the scalp or scalps by you produced were taken from a wolf or wolves, killed within this State within ninety days last past, and that you believe such wolf or wolves from which they were taken were over or under six months old, are of a large or small kind (as the case may be.)2

First section of original act repealed

The first section of the act entitled “An act to encourage the killing of wolves,” approved 15th February, 1837,3 is hereby repealed. This act to take effect from and after the first

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day of April next: Provided, That the affidavit herein provided for, may be made before any justice of the peace, and the premium may be paid out of any money in the hands of the Sheriff of the respective counties belonging to the State.4

[ certification ]
12/10/1839
Field, Alexander P.

Certificate of Sec’y[Secretary] State

This bill having been laid before the Council of Revision, and ten days not having intervened before the adjournment of the General Assembly, and said bill not having been returned with the objections of the Council on the first day of the present session of the General Assembly, the same has become a law.

Given under my hand this 10th day of December, 1839.
A. P. FIELD, Secretary of State.

1On February 20, 1839, John Harris introduced HB 351 in the House of Representatives, and the House referred the bill to a select committee. On February 25, the select committee reported the bill with several amendments. Several members then proposed amendments to the amendments, and the House concurred in the amended bill. On February 26, the House passed the bill. On March 1, the Senate passed the bill. The Senate and House having laid the bill before the Council of Revision, and ten days not having intervened before the adjournment of the first session of the Eleventh General Assembly, and the Council not having returned the bill with objections, the act became law on December 9, the first day of the special session.
Illinois House Journal. 1838. 11th G. A., 1st sess., 457, 508-09, 522, 525, 578, 602; Illinois Senate Journal. 1838. 11th G. A., 1st sess., 437, 470-71, 472, 508-509;

Illinois House Journal. 1839. 11th G. A., special sess., 99-100.

2Illinois was originally home to large numbers of wolves and coyotes (also called “prairie wolves”) that inhabited the margins where the prairie and timber ecosystems meet. Pioneers also chose to settle in these edge habitats, which provided them with lumber, water, pasture, and small game. As settlers depleted deer herds and replaced them with domestic livestock, protection of livestock from hungry wolves became paramount. By the early years of the nineteenth century, counties began paying bounties for wolf scalps and settlers began to organize wolf hunts called “frolics.” The Illinois legislature first placed a bounty on wolf scalps in 1823, but repealed the provision in 1826.
M. J. Morgan, Land of Big Rivers: French and Indian Illinois (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010), 201-04; Richard S. Fisher, New and Complete Statistical Gazetteer of the United States of America, Founded on and Compiled from the Census of 1850 (New York: J. H. Colton, 1857), 310; John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), 12, 135; “An Act to Encourage the Destruction of Wolves,” 28 January 1823, Laws Passed by the Third General Assembly of the State of Illinois (1823), 86-88; Section 15 of “An Act Supplemental to ‘An Act Making Appropriations for the Years 1825 and 1826,’ Approved January 18, 1825,” 28 January 1826, Laws (1826), 90-96.

3The first section of the original act offered lower bounties than those offered in HB 351.

4Peter Green gave a speech near the end of the 11th session defending this law against those who argued it was impractical because the previous legislation had not adequately eliminated the wolf problem two years before. Green responded that the previous law had indeed worked and the reason it needed renewal was because migration problems had caused the problem to recur. In December 1840, the General Assembly considered a bill that would have repealed all laws that allowed the payment of a bounty for killing wolves.
Illinois State Journal, 15 March 1839, 2:6.