Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

1
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illino[is] represented in the General Assembly, That the Town plat of the Town of Jefferson in the County of Edgar is hereby Vacated, Provided nothing herein contained shall be construed in any wise to affect the right of any person owning lots in said Town2

<Page 2>

[ docketing ]
A Bill to Vacate the Town plat of the Town of Jefferson

[ docketing ]
[12]/[14]/[1840]
ord 2

[ docketing ]
[12]/[14]/[1840]
read 2

[ docketing ]
[12]/[14]/[1840]
Judiciary

[ docketing ]
7

[ docketing ]
11

[ docketing ]
13

1Leander Munsell introduced HB 30 in the House of Representatives on December 14, 1840. The House referred the bill to the Committee on the Judiciary with instructions for the Committee to introduce a bill providing for the vacation of town plats. The House incorporated these instructions into HB 74.
Illinois House Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 114, 116.

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.