In force, Jan.[January] 27, 1841.
An ACT to vacate a part of the town plat of the town Griggsville.
1Part of town vacated
Owners consent to be had
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 the town of Griggsville, as lies between Federal and Stanford streets, being blocks numbered twenty-one,
twenty-two, twenty-seven and twenty-eight, be, and the same is hereby vacated. That so much of the town plat of the town of Griggsville as lies between Federal and Beckford streets being blocks numbered nineteen, twenty,
twenty-nine and thirty, be, and the same is hereby vacated: Provided, also, That the consent of the owners of lots in said blocks, should there be any other
than the proprietor, shall first be obtained.2
Approved, January 27, 1841.
1In response to a petition from the citizens of Pike County, Solomon Parsons introduced HB 29 to the House of Representatives on December 14, 1840. The House passed the bill on December 21. The Senate passed the bill on January 14, 1841. The Council of Revision approved the bill on January 27 and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 114, 121, 141, 229, 276, 287, 290; Illinois Senate Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 104, 125, 131, 163.
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 Twelfth General Assembly (Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1841), 326, GA Session 12-2,