Page:Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison Vol. 1.djvu/103

Rh And your Memorialists further beg leave to represent that one of the mostindispensable articles of life (Salt) is very Scarse and difficult to be obtained, That for the want of a sufficient number of Salt Springs in their Country, that difficulty must increase with the population, and if effectual methods are not taken to secure the Timber in the neighbourhood of the Salt Springs [near Shawneetown] from being willfully or carelessly wasted and destroyed, they will in a very few years indeed be utterly destitute of that very valuable article; that there is but one Salt Spring known in the Country of any value, and that is situate below the mouth of the Wabash River, Commonly called the Saline, and is very advantageously placed for the accommodation of most of the Inhabitants of the Territory, and has, moreover, been lately ceded by the Indians to the general Government.

Your memoralists, therefore, humbly pray the Congress of the United States to extend their Bounty to this Territory as they have lately done to that Northwest of the Ohio, and vest the said Salt Spring in the Legislature of the Territory, as soon as it is formed in trust, for the use of the Territory, and untill the Legislature be formed, that the management of said spring be committed to the Governor of the Territory, or to such other person as the President of the United States may think proper to appoint.

By a Resolve of Congress of the 29th August, 1788, confirmed by an Act of the United States of the 3d March, 1791, a donation of Four hundred acres of land is given to each of those persons who were heads of Families in the Illinois Country on or before the year 1783, which the Governor of the Territory was directed to cause to be laid off to the several claimants in a form of a Parallelogram adjoining the several Villages therein mentioned.

The whole of the lands adjoining those Villages were before the passage of the above Resolve the private property of Individuals who claimed the same by Virtue of old grants made to them and their ancestors during the time of the French government so that the Governor could not cause the said donation to be laid off in the form and manner designated by the said Resolve. This has been very detrimental to the several Grantees, and in a great measure prevented the further population of the Country, your memorialists however beg leave to observe.