In force, 8th Jan.[January] 1840.
AN ACT to vacate the town plat of Shepherdstown.
1Condition on which plat of town is vacated
Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That so much of the town plat of Shepherdstown, as lies within the county of Vermilion, State of Illinois, shall be, and the same is hereby declared vacated, upon the proprietor of said town making and filing with the clerk of the County Commissioners’ Court, of said county of Vermilion, under oath, a statement in writing, setting forth that he is the sole proprietor
and owner of all the lots embraced within the limits of said town.
1On December 11, 1839, William Fithian presented a petition to the Senate, and the Senate referred the petition to a select committee. On December 18, Fithian,
a member of the select committee, introduced SB 11 in the Senate. On December 18, the Senate passed the bill. On December 21, the House of Representatives laid the bill on the table, as they had just passed a similar bill. On December 24, the House indefinitely postponed consideration of the bill. On January
2, 1840, the House passed the bill. On January 8, the Council of Revision approved the bill and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1839. 11th G. A., special sess., 53, 69, 82, 93, 117; Illinois Senate Journal. 1839. 11th G. A., special sess., 30, 85, 90, 95.
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.
Printed Document, 1 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Eleventh General Assembly, at their Special Session (Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1840), 44, GA Session: 11-S,