Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force 19th January 1837

AN ACT to locate a State road in the county of Edgar.
1

Commissioners appointed

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois represented in the General Assembly, That Walter Newton, John Terrill and Abner Dill be and they are hereby appointed commissioners to view and locate a State road2 in the county of Edgar, beginning at the State line at the termination of a State road leading from Montezuma, Indiana, in section sixteen, town. fifteen north of range

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ten west,3 on the nearest and best ground to the town of Paris in the county aforesaid.

Where and when to meet

Duty

Surveyors to make plat, and delivey it to commissioners and they to file it with clerk of commissioners’ court

Said road so laid out deemed a State road

Compensation of commis’rs.[commissioners]

Sec. 2. The said commissioners, or a majority of them, shall, after being duly sworn before some justice of the peace, meet at the place of beginning as set forth in the first section of this act, on the first day of April next, or within sixty days thereafter, and proceed to locate said road, taking to their assistance a competent surveyor who shall survey and mark said road, noting the course and distance, and shall within twenty days thereafter furnish the road commissioners with a complete plat of the survey, whose duties it shall be to file the same with the clerk of the county commissioners’ court, which report shall form a part of the records of said court, and the said road, so laid out, shall be deemed a State road, and shall be opened and kept in repair as other State roads are. The county commissioners’ court shall pay to the said road commissioners, surveyor, chainman and marker, such compensation as they may think just and right.

Approved 19th January, 1837.

1On December 30, 1836, Gideon Minor introduced HB 41 in the House of Representatives. On January 9, 1837 the House passed the bill. On January 17, the Senate passed the bill. On January 19, the Council of Revision approved the bill, and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 141, 164, 219, 248, 280, 285, 297;

Journal of the House of Representatives of the Tenth General Assembly of the State of Illinois, at their First Session, (Vandalia, IL: William Walters, 1836), Journal of the Senate of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois at their First Session, (Vandalia, IL: William Walters, 1836), 180, 189, 195, 237, 240.

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.

3Located in the northeast portion of Edgar County.
“Counties, Townships, and Ranges in Illinois,” Maps, Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Reference.aspx?ref=Reference html files/LandMeasurement.html.