In force, Jan.[January] 7, 1841.
Location of seat of justice
Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That from and after the first day of March, in the year of our Lord, one thousand
eight hundred and forty-one, the seat of justice in and for the county of Franklin, shall be deemed and held to be at the town of Benton, in said county, and all terms of the circuit court required to be held in and for said county, and sessions of the county commissioners’ court which may be held after the above named date, shall be holden in the town of Benton.2
Public records
Sec. 2. It is hereby required that from and after the ime specified in the first section of this act, that the public records, with all proceedings of a judicial or military charac-
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ter, required to be performed at the county seat, are hereby required to be done and
performed in the aforesaid seat of justice, in and for the said county of Franklin.
County officers to reside at county seat
Sec. 3. It shall be the duty of the circuit and county commissioners’ clerks, with the sheriff of said county, in the discharge of their official transactions, to conform in all respects with
the foregoing requisitions of this act, likewise all public officers required to reside at the county seat.
Monies for lots sold how applied
Sec. 4. That all monies which may have accrued from the sale of town lots in the aforesaid
town of Benton, or that may hereafter accrue in virtue of any future sale of said property, is hereby expressly required to be expended in the erection of the necessary public
buildings, and for no other purpose until otherwise directed by law.3 This act to take effect from and after its passage.
Approved, January 7, 1841.
1Achilles D. Dollins introduced HB 11 to the House of Representatives on December 9, 1840. The House passed the bill on December 11. The Senate passed the bill on December 21. The Council of Revision approved the bill on January 7, 1841, and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 94-95, 102, 105, 145, 166, 200; Illinois Senate Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 71, 76, 93, 101.
2In An Act to Establish the County of Williamson, the General Assembly appointed commissioners to locate the county seat of Franklin County. In August 1839, the commissioners chose a site approximately eight miles north
of Frankfort, and the county commissioners of Franklin County laid out a town there and named
it Benton. In January 1840, the General Assembly repealed the act designating Frankfort as
the county seat. However, the county commissioners ordered in March 1840 that courts
would continue to convene at the previous county seat of Frankfort until further orders.
Apparently, some citizens were protesting the change of county seat from Frankfort
to Benton, but this act settled the issue.
An Act to Amend "An Act Establishing the County of Williamson," Approved February
28, 1839; History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin and Williamson Counties, Illinois (Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1887), 363, 365.
Printed Document, 2 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Twelfth General Assembly (Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1841), 93-94, GA Session 12-2,
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