Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force Jan.[January] 7, 1835.

AN ACT to amend “An act directing the location of a State Road from Carmi in White County, to the County Road leading from Palestine to Heath’s mill in Lawrence County.”
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Commissioners appointed to locate said road.

Compensation.

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That Joseph Robinson of Edwards county, William Higgins and Samuel H. Clubb of Lawrence county, or any two of them, are hereby appointed commissioners to view, locate and mark a State road2 from Henry I. Mills’s in Edwards county, to Higgins’s3 mills in Edwards county, on the Bon Pas creek; thence to Benjamin Sumner’s in Lawrence county; thence the nearest and best route to Heath’s mills on the Embarrass river in Lawrence county, and thence north to intersect the county road in Crawford county, leading from Palestine to Heath’s mills; and shall make report thereof to the clerks of the county commissioners’ courts of Edwards and Lawrence counties, of that part thereof that may be in such county; and the county commissioners’ court of Edwards county shall make said commissioners a just and

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equitable allowance for all time and necessary expense in viewing and reporting the same, to be paid out of the County Treasury, for that part that may pass through such county; and the county commissioners’ court of Lawrence county shall, in like manner, make said commissioners a just and equitable compensation for all time and necessary expense in viewing and reporting the same, to be paid out of the County Treasury, for that part that may pass through such county.

When and where to meet.

Sec. 2. The said commissioners, or any two of them, shall meet on the first day of April next, or within a month thereafter, at Henry I. Mills’s, and being sworn before some justice of the peace, faithfully to discharge the duties required of them by this act, shall proceed to view, locate and mark said road; and said road, thus laid out, shall be, and is hereby declared a State road, and shall be opened and kept in repair in the same manner as other public roads.

Acts repealed.

Sec. 3. The third and fourth sections of the act to which this is an amendment, are hereby repealed.

This act to be in force from and after its passage.

Approved, Jan. 7, 1835.

1Henry I. Mills introduced SB 19, originally titled “A Bill to Amend ‘An Act Directing the Location of a State Road from Carmi in White County, to the Wabash River in Crawford County,’” in the Senate on December 20, 1834. The Senate passed the bill on December 24. The Senate amended the title by striking out “to the Wabash River, in Crawford County,” and inserting “to the County Road Leading from Palestine to Heath’s Mill, in Lawrence County.” On December 26, the House of Representatives referred the bill to a select committee. The select committee reported back the bill without amendment on December 29, and on December 31 the House passed the bill. On January 7, 1835, the Council of Revision approved the bill and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 160, 163, 174, 190, 222, 240, 245; Illinois Senate Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 118, 126, 131-32, 164, 192, 195.

2State roads were those public roads established or designated by the General Assembly and usually crossed county lines. Only the General Assembly could establish, alter, or abandon state roads, until 1840 and 1841, when the General Assembly gave counties the authority to alter or to abandon state roads upon petition by a majority of voters in the area of the change.
An Act concerning Public Roads, sec. 9; An Act Authorizing Commissioners’ Courts to Alter, Change, and Relocate State Roads; An Act concerning Public Roads.

3This is probably William Higgins.