Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force, Dec.[December] 14, 1840.

An ACT to vacate a part of the plat of Vermilionville, in La Salle county.
1

J. Whiting may vacate part of town plat.

Proviso.

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That Jabez Whiting is hereby authorized to vacate so much of the town plat of Vermilionville, in La Salle county, State of Illinois, as lies west of Centre street, in said town: Provided, That said Jabez Whiting shall be the sole owner of that part of the plat of said town, and shall make out such vacation, in writing, which shall he acknowledged before some justice of the peace, and recorded in the recorder's office in said county.2

Approved, December 14, 1840.

1William Stadden introduced SB 9 to the Senate on November 30, 1840. The Senate passed the bill on December 5. The House of Representatives passed the bill on December 10. The Council of Revision approved the bill on December 14 and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 88, 94, 100; Illinois Senate Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 27, 40, 46, 69, 73, 81.

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.