The towns along the Q are located in the state of Illinois and are distributed between three counties: Cook, DuPage, and Kane. Within those counties are municipalities that comprise the towns along the Q. Less obvious though, are the fourteen townships in the same vicinity. What are townships anyway?
Most residents of the towns along the Q are familiar with the Township Assessors, who determine property valuations for calculation of amounts of annual property tax to be paid. In fact, townships do a lot more - and have influenced the form and function of the towns along the Q in ways not evident to everyday citizens. Historically there have been two very different kinds of townships – survey townships and civil townships – that have had distinctly different purposes in the shaping of the towns along the Q.
Shortly after the founding of our nation, land north of the Ohio River and west of the original thirteen states, comprised the Northwest Territory. Sale of Northwest Territory land for trans-Appalachian settlement required a way of measuring the land and dividing it into manageable saleable tracts. To that end, the Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for ordering the land into a grid, consisting of easily identifiable tracts of land that could be bought sight unseen. The ordinance specified that surveyors:
"shall proceed to divide the said territory into townships of six miles square by lines running due north and south, and others crossing these at right angles, as near as may be. The parts of the subdivisions respectively shall be marked by subdivisions into lots of one mile square, or 640 acres, in the same directions as the external lines, and numbered from 1 to 36."
Surveyors began their work in Northern Illinois in 1821, dividing the region into townships, each consisting of sixteen one-mile-square sections, and each township having a unique numerical designation. Additional numerical notation identified land within the sections.
Pierce Downer claimed land in present day Downers Grove in 1832. The numerical designation of his parcel was: NW 1/4 SEC 9 T 38 N R 11 E, namely the northwest one fourth of Section 9 of Township 38 North, Range 11 East. One fourth of a 640-acre section would be 160 acres. Thus, the property description not only described the location of Pierce Downer’s claim, but also the size of his land holdings. Nearly two centuries later, the legal description of every property uses the same coding system used in the establishment of survey townships.
Arterial roads were established along section lines to provide access to land tracts in the interior. The result is the regularity of important roadways at mile intervals, i.e. 47th, 55th, and 63rd Streets. That same grid is repeated in rural areas throughout the Upper Midwest. In the towns along the Q, those arterial streets in many instances follow survey township borders.
In 1848, Illinois had been a state for thirty years and settlers were streaming in - occupying land in the towns along the Q and elsewhere. More effective local government was needed. Accordingly, the redrafted Illinois State Constitution provided for the organization of civil townships, a form of local government that had been in place in New England since 1636. Counties - Cook, Du Page and Kane - being among them, were given the option of converting the survey townships into civil townships, which they did in 1850. As units of local government, the townships’ numerical designations were replaced with names. In DuPage County for example, survey township T38 R9 E became Naperville Township.
Since the townships were no longer instruments of land measurement, their borders could be changed to reflect local governance needs. Though Du Page County townships have had no significant alteration of their former survey township borders, Cook County townships have experienced border alterations and secessions (smaller townships created out of portions of larger townships), to the point where in many parts of Cook County there is little resemblance to the old survey township scheme.
As units of local government, Civil Townships’ fundamental functions were road and bridge maintenance, property assessment, and general assistance to local residents. As local communities incorporated as municipalities, (i.e. villages and cities) in the late 19th and 20th and 21st centuries, some of those functions have been assumed by the municipalities.
Townships remain relevant, in providing property value assessment, youth and senior services, emergency (and not so emergency) general assistance, and highway maintenance in unincorporated (outside of municipal boundaries) areas. So townships, first survey townships, and now civil townships have influenced the lives of citizens all out of proportion to their visibility in our daily lives.
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