Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force, Mar.[March] 1, 1839.

AN ACT to vacate the town plats of the town of Caledonia and the first addition to the town of Rome, in the county of Peoria.
1

Plat vacated.

Proviso.

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That the present proprietor or proprietors of the town of Caledonia, and the first addition to the town of Rome, in the county of Peoria, be, and they are hereby authorized to vacate the survey and plat of the aforesaid towns of Caledonia, and the first addition to the town of Rome: Provided the vacating of the survey and plats of said town shall not interfere with the vested rights of any person or persons, who may have purchased lots in said towns of the proprietors or others.

Approved, March 1, 1839.2

1On February 4, 1839, John Hamlin in the Senate presented the petition of Isaac Underhill, requesting the passage of an act to vacate the plats of certain towns. The Senate referred the petition to a select committee. In response to this petition, Hamlin of the aforesaid select committee introduced SB 229 in the Senate on February 18. The Senate passed the bill on February 19. The House of Representatives concurred on February 27. On March 1, the Council of Revision approved the bill and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1838. 11th G. A., 1st sess., 454, 545, 573; Illinois Senate Journal. 1838. 11th G. A., 1st sess., 267, 344-45, 352, 452-53, 474, 476-77.

2Illinois experienced a time of intense land speculation in the 1830s that resulted in a number of “paper towns,” settlements that were platted and available for sale but where few or no people actually lived. Many of the proprietors of these settlements abandoned them during and after the Panic of 1837. As a result, the General Assembly received a large number of petitions for vacation during their sessions from 1838 to 1841. In 1841, the legislature passed an act setting parameters for proprietors to vacate town plats themselves. Vacating a plat gave owners greater flexibility in the use, fencing, and sale of the property.
An Act to Vacate Town Plats; Alasdair Roberts, America’s First Great Depression: Economic Crisis and Political Disorder after the Panic of 1837 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 19, 33, 38; James E. Davis, Frontier Illinois (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 210-11; Robert P. Howard, Illinois: A History of the Prairie State (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1972), 196.