In force Feb [February] 17, 1841.
An ACT to extend the provisions of an act entitled “An act to provide for the dedication of lots in towns situated on canal lands, to
public purposes,” approved, February twenty-eight, one thousand eight hundred and thirty nine.
1Canal com’rs[commissioners] to convey lot to 1st Unitarian society of Chicago.
Lot to be vested in society.
Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That the commissioners of the Illinois and Michigan canal, be, and they are hereby authorised to grant and convey to the first Unitarian Society of Chicago, the lot number seven, in block number thirty-eight, of the original town of Chicago, under the provisions and conditions of an act entitled, “An act to provide for the dedication of lots, in towns situated on canal lands to
public purposes,” approved, February twenty-eight, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine, notwithstanding
the said lot may have been exposed for sale, and upon the surrender to the said canal
commissioners of the original certificate of purchase of the aforesaid lot, the title to the aforesaid lot shall be vested in the said society, and thereupon an entry
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shall be made by the said board of commissioners upon the recorded plat of said town
of Chicago, as directed in the aforesaid act.2
Approved, February 17, 1841.
1On December 10, 1840, Ebenezer Peck in the House of Representatives presented the petition of the First Unitarian Society of Chicago, which the House referred to a select committee. In response to this petition, Peck
of the aforesaid select committee introduced HB 60 in the House on December 30. On January 18, 1841, the House passed the bill by a
vote of 53 yeas to 26 nays, with Abraham Lincoln not voting . On February 6, the Senate passed the bill. On February 17, the Council of Revision approved the bill and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 97, 159, 182, 191, 241-42, 347, 407, 413, 424; Illinois Senate
Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 178, 181, 241, 249.
2Section one of the 1839 act provided for the donation of lots to religious societies for the construction of
houses of worship. The First Unitarian Society of Chicago came into existence in June 1836. In May 1841, the Society dedicated its first permanent
building, the First Unitarian Church. This structure, which was lost to fire in 1863,
was located on Washington Street, between Clark and Dearborn streets.
George S. Phillips, Chicago and her Churches (Chicago: E. B. Meyers and Chandler, 1868), 412-13, 415.
Printed Document, 2 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Twelfth General Assembly (Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1841), 48-49, GA Session 12-2,