Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force, January 15th, 1840.

AN ACT to vacate the plat of the town of Cottage Grove, in the county of Cook.
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 survey and plat of the town of Cottage Grove, in the county of Cook, be, and the same is, hereby vacated: Provided, the assent of the owners of any lots in said town, shall first be obtained, which assent shall be made in writing, and recorded in the recorder’s office of Cook county. This act to take effect, force from and after its passage.

Approved, January 15, 1840.2

1On December 26, 1839, Senator James H. Woodworth introduced SB 32 in the Senate. On December 27, the Senate passed the bill. On January 10, 1840, the House of Representatives passed the bill. On January 15, the Council of Revision approved the bill and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1839. 11th G. A., special sess., 95, 118, 147; Illinois Senate Journal. 1839. 11th G. A., special sess., 58, 61, 101, 104, 119.

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.