Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force Feb.[February] 12, 1835.

AN ACT to view and lay out a State Road from Brownsville by way of Pinckneyville, to New Nashville in Washington County.
1

Commissioners appointed to locate said road.

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That Henry Dillinger of the county of Jackson, Abner Pyle of the county of Perry, and James Gordon of the county of Washington, be, and the same are hereby appointed commissioners to view and locate a State road, beginning at Brownsville in the county of Jackson, and thence the nearest and best route to Dillinger’s mill, and thence to the bridge on Delumb’s, and thence to the lower end of the four mile prairie, to a corner dividing some two individuals’ land nearest on said route, and thence due north to the old Kaskaskia road,2 and thence to Pinckneyville in the county of Perry,

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and thence the nearest and best way to New Nashville in Washington county, by way of James Gordon’s in said county.3

Where and when to meet.

Sec. 2. It shall be the duty of said commissioners, or a majority of them, to meet at Brownsville in the county of Jackson, on or before the fifteenth day of August next, and after having taken an oath or affirmation before some justice of the peace, faithfully and impartially to execute the duties required by this act, to proceed to mark and lay out said road above mentioned, and shall make due return thereof to the next county commissioners’ court of the several counties.

Compensation.

Sec. 3. The county commissioners of the counties of Jackson, Perry and Washington, may allow, out of the County Treasuries respectively, a reasonable compensation for their services, and the county commissioners shall order the same to be opened and kept in repair as other State roads are: Provided, That the commissioners herein shall locate said road so as to run the same as near parallel with the north and south sectional divisions as practicable, and when the same shall run through any enclosure, the owner thereof shall not be compelled to open or remove the same before the first day of November next.

This act to take effect from and after its passage.

Approved, Feb. 12, 1835.

1Richard G. Murphy introduced HB 39, originally titled "A Bill to View and Lay Out a Road from the Nine Mile Tree, at or near Little Rattle Snake Creek, in Jackson County, to New Nashville in Washington County" in the House of Representatives on December 17, 1834. On December 18, representatives proposed two amendments, and the House referred the bill and amendments to a select committee. On January 8, 1835, the select committee reported back a substitute bill, in which the House concurred. The House passed the substitute bill on January 9, and agreed to amend the title so as to read “A Bill to View and Lay out a State Road from Brownsville, by Way of Pinckneyville, to New Nashville, in Washington County.” On January 15, the Senate referred the bill to a select committee. The select committee reported back the bill with amendments on February 7. The Senate concurred in the amendments and passed the bill as amended. On February 10, the House concurred in the Senate amendments. On February 12, the Council of Revision approved the bill, and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 130, 135, 251, 256-57, 502, 520, 539, 549; Illinois Senate Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 211, 221, 259, 456-57, 479, 504, 508.

2There was a very early established route from Kaskaskia to Vincennes, Indiana, that ran across southern Illinois.
Archer Butler Hulbert, Military Roads of the Mississippi Basin: The Conquest of the Old Northwest (Cleveland, OH: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1904), 16; Solon Justus Buck, The Centennial History of Illinois: Illinois in 1818 (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1918, reprint; n.p.: Illinois Centennial Commission, 1917), 115

3The distance of a direct route from Brownsville to Nashville through Pinckneyville is approximately forty miles.