Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That Daniel Smedley, Joseph Duncan, Aquilla Becroft, Thomas Wiswall, James Dunlap, William Brown, Silas Massey, James Green, John Semple, Benjamin Hamilton2, Henry Sanderson, Jacob Strown, S. M. Chambers, J. T. Cassell, William King, Adam Allison, J. T. Holms, James Halleday, Elihu Walcott and John T. Jones, of Morgan county, William Gillam, Scott Rigs and Elisha Hitt, of Scott county, H. G. Bowers, James M. Bradford, N. W. Edwards, John Williams, James D. Smith, W. Renshaw, Robert Allen and John Crowder, of Sangamon county, John H. Burriss, Elon Eland, Thomas Hobson, George Woodman, John Caldwell, John Hewitt, Isham Linder, and William Yates, of Greene county, be, and they are hereby created a body politic and corporate, under the name of the “Illinois Agricultural and Stock Association.”

Sec. 2. The objects of this association shall be to encourage agriculture in all its branches, domestic manufactures, and to improve the stock of the State.

Sec. 3. To carry out the objects of the association, it shall be invested with power to lease or purchase in fee simple, and hold real estate in one or more parcels, not exceeding three hundred and twenty acres, situated in the county of Morgan, for the purpose of establishing thereupon a pattern farm and other improvements connected with the objects of the association.

Sec. 4. The association shall be empowered to import stock from any portion of the world, and at their exhibitions to grant premiums as private donations, which it is hereby authorized to receive, and the funds of the association may in the estimation of the directors justify.

Sec. 5. The association shall be empowered to establish an agricultural school, and to do such acts as may be necessary thereto.

Sec. 6. The capital stock of the association, independent of the real estate, shall not exceed fifty thousand dollars, which shall be divided into shares of twenty-five dollars each, one dollar on the share to be paid in at the time of subscription, and the remainder at such times and places as the board of directors may require: Provided, That no more than fifty cents on the dollar may be called for in any one year, nor may any call be payable until public notice shall have been given thereof, by publication for four successive weeks in a weekly newspaper printed in Jacksonville and Springfield. Any stockholder who shall fail for the space of two months after the publication of said notice, to pay the call upon his stock, shall forfeit the same to the association.

Sec. 7. It shall be the duty of the corporators to open books in Jacksonville, in Morgan county, and at such other

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places as they may deem expedient for the subscription of stock, and so soon as stock to the amount of five thousand dollars shall be subscribed, it shall be the duty of the corporators to call a meeting of the stockholders to he holden in Jacksonville, four weeks notice of the time and place of said meeting to be given in a weekly paper printed in Jacksonville aforesaid.

Sec. 8. When the stockholders shall have assembled, they shall elect a chairman and secretary, and then proceed to elect by ballot (each share being entitled to one vote) a president, two vice-presidents, a secretary, treasurer, and board of seven directors, of which board the president, vice-presidents and secretary shall, ex-officio, be members, who shall continue in office during one year, and until their successors shall have been duly elected and given bond, when a bond shall be required.

Sec. 9. It shall be the duty of the chairman and secretary to certify under their hands and seals, the result of said election to the clerk of the county commissioners’ court of Morgan county, who shall record the name (same) and file the original in his office, and the original or a certified copy, under the seal of the court, of the record of the same, shall be deemed evidence of the organization of the association.

Sec. 10. Said corporation shall be empowered to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, answer and be answered unto, adopt a private seal and change it at pleasure, and adopt by-laws and change the same, and do such other acts as natural persons may: Provided, They are consistent with the Constitution and objects of this act.

Sec. 11. The treasurer shall be required to give bond for the faithful discharge of the duties which shall from time to time be imposed upon him by the by-laws of the association, in such sum as the association may prescribe, with at least two substantial freeholders of the county of Morgan as his sureties.

Sec. 12. The association may do such acts and employ such agents as may be appropriate in carrying out the provisions of this act, but shall never permit gaming, or the sale of ardent spirits, or the running or trotting of horse against horse upon their grounds or elsewhere, under the penalty of a forfeiture of this charter.

Sec. 13. Any stockholder who shall directly or indirectly make any bet upon the result of any test which shall be made of the speed or qualities of any horse or other species of stock, under the direction of the association, or upon the result of any exhibition of any species of stock, or of articles of domestic industry, or the products of the soil, shall forfeit his stock, and cease to be a member of the association. And that any person, other than a stockholder, who shall bet or offer to bet upon any of the results aforesaid, whilst upon the grounds of the association, shall be subject to a penalty

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of ten dollars, to be recovered in the name of the association, for its own use, before any justice of the peace of the county of Morgan.

Sec. 14. The stock of said association shall be considered personal property, and the charter hereby granted shall continue in force for the term of twenty years from the passage hereof.

Approved, February 26, 1841.