To the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Illinois, in General Assembly convened at the town of Vandalia, on the first Monday of December in the year of our Lord one Thousand Eight hundred and thirty eight.

The petition of the undersigned, citizens of the said State of Illinois respectfully represents

That on section 54 in town[township] 11 north of Range 8 East in Peoria county is a pond of about one hundred acres formed by a spring branch that rises in the bluffs and runs to the edge of the Lasalle prairie and there stops and forms said pond for the want of an outlet, In the dry part of the season, the pond is dry and a heavy growth of vegetation covers the ground. Whenever there are heavy rains in the hot part of the season, said pond fills with water and kills the vegitation thereby creating much sickness in the neighbourhood which in dry seasons is very heathful We therefore consider said pond a great publick nuisance and worthy of Legislative consideration. We therefore crave your honorable body to pass an act legalizing the draining of said pond. We are not anxious as to the mode of doing it, but will sugjest as one way to authorize the county commissioners of Peoria County to appoint men to examine and locate the said drain and superintend the diging of the same, which can mostly be done by subscription in the neighbourhood, an appropriation from the County Treasury might be made by the commissioners of the County, if they were permited by you to do so. The state road from Peoria to Galena necessarily runs accross said pond which when filled with water renders it impassable for several months at a time. It is believed that a part of the road labour might be judiciously applyed to the draining of said pond if it was made legal for the supervisor of the road district so to aply it, as it would not be much more expensive to drain the pond than it would be to make the road good accross it.

For the particulars of the situation of said pond

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and the neighbourhood about it we beg leave to refer you to our honorable Representatives from this county and district And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray &c.[et cetera]