Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

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Sec [Section]1 Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, Represented in the General Assembly, That all that part of the plat of the town of Shepherdstown, situated in the county of Vermilion and State of Illinois, be, and the same is hereby vacated: Provided, that the consent of the owners of Lots in said plat be given in writing and recorded in the recorder’s office of said county.2

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A Bill for an act to vacate a part of the plat of the town of Shepherdstown

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[12]/[23]/[1839]
In def[Indefinitely] postponed

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[12]/[16]/[1839]
Engrossed

1Isaac P. Walker introduced HB 5 in the House of Representatives on December 11, 1839. The House passed the bill on December 17, the same day the Senate passed a similar bill. On December 23, the Senate indefinitely postponed further consideration.
Illinois House Journal. 1839. 11th G. A., special sess., 11, 41, 50; Illinois Senate Journal. 1839. 11th G. A., special sess., 31, 51.

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.