Page:Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison Vol. 1.djvu/102

64 of their Improvements to enhance the Price. Your Petitioners therefore pray, That a law may be passed for their relief, giving the right of Pre-emption to all those who may have so settled on the public lands, and also as one of the more sure means of populating the Country as of enhancing the value of the United States lands remaining undisposed of in the Territory. They further pray, that provision may be made in the said Law for securing a certain part of every Section of Such public land to those who will actually settle and cultivate the same.

The United States having pledged themselves in the Ordinance that Schools and the means of Education should be forever encouraged, and having in all the Sales of land heretofore made, reserved considerable portions thereof for that purpose.

Your memorialists, therefore, humbly pray that a law may be passed making a grant of lands for the support of the Schools and Seminaries of learning to the several Settlements in the Illinois, the Settlement of Vincennes, and that of Clark's Grant, near the Rapids of the Ohio.

The means of communication as well between the several Settled parts of the Territory as between the Territory and the State of Kentucky, being extremely difficult and inconvenient, as well for want of good Roads as for want of houses of Entertainment, and as neither of those objects can be obtained otherwise than by application to the United States who own or may own the lands through which the said Roads must pass.

Your memorialists, therefore, further pray that a law may be enacted granting to such persons as the Governor of the Territory may recommend, Four hundred acres of land to each in such places as the said Governor may designate, not exceeding the distance of Twenty miles from each other, on the road leading from Clark county to Knox county, and from Vincennes in the said County to the Bank of the Ohio opposite to the town of Henderson, in Kentucky: also from Vincennes to Kaskaskia, in Randolph county, and from thence to Lusk's Ferry on the Ohio [15 miles above the mouth of Cumberland river], who will open good waggon roads and Establish houses of Entertainment thereon for Five Years, under such restrictions as to your Wisdom may Seem Necessary.