In force Feb.[February] 12, 1835.
AN ACT to change a part of the State Road leading from Vandalia to Golconda, and for other purposes.
1Commissioners appointed to relocate said road.
Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That John S. Davis and Abraham Romine, sen., be appointed commissioners to re-view, re-locate and re-survey so much of the State
road leading from Vandalia to Golconda, established in 1823,2 as lies between the bridge on the East Fork of the Kaskaskia, now being constructed in the county of Marion, and John Myers’s in the said county of Marion, so as to pass by Salem, the seat of justice thereof.
When and where to meet.
Sec. 2. The commissioners aforesaid, shall meet at Hardy Foster’s on the first day of June next, or within sixty days thereafter, and before entering
on the duties assigned them by this act, shall take an oath before some justice of
the peace, faithfully and impartially to locate said road, keeping in view the shortness
of the route and the eligibility of ground, so as to make the same a permanent road.
Shall make report thereof.
Sec. 3. The said commissioners, so soon as they shall have completed said work, shall make
a report thereof, under their hands, and return the same to the county commissioners’ court of the said county of Marion.
Compensation.
Sec. 4. When said report shall be filed in the office of the clerk of the county commissioners’ court of the said county of Marion, the whole bill of expenses of commissioners, and all other necessary persons employed,
shall be made out and presented to said county commissioners’ court, who shall make an allowance therefor, for the sums severally due, allowing the commissioners
one dollar and fifty cents each, and all other persons necessarily employed, seventy-five
cents per day each.
County commissioners of Marion shall cause said road to be opened.
Sec. 5. The said county commissioners’ court of Marion, shall cause the said road to be opened four poles wide so soon as practicable, and
kept in repair to the best advantage.
Certain appropriation removed.
Sec. 6. That the appropriation of one hundred dollars for building a bridge across the East
Fork of the Kaskas
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kia river, on the State road leading from Vandalia to Golconda, made by the law appropriating a portion of the avails arising from the sale of Saline lands in Gallatin county,3 to internal improvement, be, and the same is hereby removed and appropriated to the
building and construction of a bridge across the said stream at the point where the new State road, contemplated in this act, may pass the same,
and that part of the said State road which must be changed in order for the same to
pass the aforesaid bridge, be, and the same is hereby declared a State road, and shall
be worked upon and kept in repair as such.
County commissioners of Marion and Clay counties authorized to enter Saline lands to the amount of their respective appropriations.
Proviso.
Sec. 7. The county commissioners, respectively, of the counties of Marion and Clay, are hereby vested with power and authority to enter, or cause to be entered, for
the use of the people of their respective counties, with the commissioner of the Gallatin county Saline lands, any quantity of land at the minimum price, and in legal subdivisions, amounting
to a sum not exceeding their respective appropriations, made to them by the law aforesaid:
Provided, That the land, or the proceeds thereof, be specifically appropriated to the objects
contemplated in the law aforesaid, and none other.
1On January 20, 1835, William L. D. Ewing of the Senate introduced the petition of sundry citizens of Marion County, requesting a law changing a part of the road from Vandalia to Golconda. The Senate referred the petition to a select committee, and from that committee,
then introduced SB 119 in the Senate on February 5, 1835. On February 9, the Senate referred the bill back
to the select committee that introduced it. The select committee reported back the
bill on February 10 with an amendment, in which the Senate concurred. The Senate
passed the bill as amended. The House of Representatives concurred on February 11. On February 12, the Council of Revision approved the bill and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 527, 536, 548, 555;
Illinois Senate Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 281, 439-440, 470, 475, 500, 509, 515.
2
“Section 4, “An Act Appointing Commissioners to Lay Out the Roads Therein Mentioned,”
10 February 1823, Laws Passed by the Third General Assembly of the State of Illinois (1823), 123.
3Improving the means of transportation was one of the most vexing problems facing Antebellum
Illinois. Funding the construction of roads, bridges, dams, and other public works proved
challenging for the Illinois General Assembly. One of its early gambits was to petition Congress to allow the state to sell portions of the Saline Reserve Lands, using the money realized from the sale for public works. To this end, the General
Assembly passed a resolution asking Congress to allow the state to sell 20,000 acres
in Gallatin County. Anticipating congressional approval, the General Assembly adopted an act in February
1831 that appropriated the proceeds from the sales to various counties in the State.
Section one listed the recipients county by county. Marion County was to receive $200, $100 for the bridge across the East Fork, and $100 for a bridge
across Crooked Creek. Congress granted its permission to sell the 20,000 acres, and as of January 1841,
agents had paid $9,956.50 into the State Treasury from such land sales. Of this sum,
the state had distributed $8,408.08 to sundry counties. Marion County had yet to receive
its $200, and in a report to the Senate, Levi Davis, auditor of public accounts, promised that Marion County would receive its portion
out of the $1,548.42 remaining in the Treasury.
“An Act Appropriating a Portion of the Avails Arising from the Sale of the Saline
Lands, in Gallatin County, to Internal Improvement,” 16 February 1831, The Laws of Illinois (1831), 14-15; U.S. House Journal. 1830. 21st Cong., 2nd sess., 14 February, 302; “Report of the Committee on the Salines
and Saline Lands,” 12 January 1841, Illinois Senate Reports. 1840. 12th G. A., 219.
4In January 1836, the House of Representatives passed a bill reviving this act, but the Senate took no action.
Printed Document, 2 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at their First Session (Vandalia, IL:
J. Y. Sawyer, 1835), 116-17, GA Session: 9-1