An agricultural society was established last year, in the State of Illinois, and Mr. Birkbeck made president. It held its first meeting at Kaskaskia; but whether there has been any other meeting I do not know.
I have just received the patents of my farms, from the city of Washington, where they had been sent for the president's signature. They are complete titles, of a short and simple form. The following is a copy of one of them:—
{290} "269. James Monroe, President of the United States of America,
"To whom these presents shall come, greeting.
"Know ye, that John Woods, assignee of Hugh Collins, of White county, Illinois, having deposited, at the general land office, a certificate of the register of the land office at Shawneetown; whereby it appears, that full payment has been made, for the south-east quarter of section nineteen; in township, two south; of range, ten east; containing 160 acres of the lands directed to be sold at Shawneetown, by the acts of Congress relative to the disposal of the public lands in Illinois. There is granted to the said John Woods, the quarter section of land above described; to have and to hold the said quarter section of land, with the appurtenances, unto the said John Woods, his heirs and assigns, for ever. In testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to be made patent, and the seal of the general land office to be hereunto {291} affixed. Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the eighteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, and of the independence of the United States, the forty-fourth.
[Seal.]
By the President,
James Monroe.
Josiah Meigs, Commissioner of the
General Land Office.
Recorded Vol. ii. page 445."
I received the above, from the land office of Shawneetown, free of all expence. By the number 269 at the beginning, is meant the number as it stands in the Shawneetown land-office books; and it is also mentioned where to find the entry of it in the general land office books, so that it is easy to find the title of any land that has been sold at any time by the United States' government.
We have had but few emigrants from England this summer; but there is a family or two on the Ohio coming on, and {292} some more are expected from the eastward. And several at the Prairies intend returning to England, during the winter, to bring back their families with them in the spring.