Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force Feb. [February] 27, 1837.

AN ACT to locate a State road from Thornton to Lockport, Plainfield and Blackberry creek.
1

Commissioners appointed to locate road.

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That John Blackstone and Benjamin Butterfield, of Cook county, and Holden Cifon of Will county, be and they are hereby appointed commissioners to view and locate a State road 2from Thornton to Lockport,3 thence to Plainfield, and from thence to a point on the State road from Chicago to Dixon’s ferry, at or near Blackberry creek.4

When and where to meet.
To be sworn.

Sec. 2. Said commissioners or a majority of them, shall

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meet at Thornton at a convenient time in May next, and being duly sworn before some justice of the peace of the county, faithfully and impartially to discharge the duties assigned them by this act, shall proceed to view, mark and locate said road on the nearest and best ground for a permanent road, making the same as direct as possible, having a due regard to the private property.

Shall return a plat of road to commissioners courts.

Road how opened and kept in repair.

Sec. 3. They shall return a plat to each county commissioners court through which said road shall pass, giving the courses and distances to be recorded, establishing the same eighty feet wide, and which shall be opened and kept in repair as other State roads are.

Compensation to commissioners.

Sec. 4. Said commissioners shall receive two dollars per day each, for each and every day necessarily employed together with all reasonable incidental expenses by them incurred, the whole account to be made out and certified, to be paid out of the Treasury of Cook and Will counties, each paying a moiety thereof.

Approved, February 27, 1837.

1On February 8, 1837, John A. McClernand introduced HB 196 in the House of Representatives. On February 15, the House passed the bill. On February 23, the Senate passed the bill. On February 27, the Council of Revision approved the bill, and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 514, 599, 686-87, 725, 739; Illinois Senate Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 445, 490, 494-95, 530-31.

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.

3In 1839, the General Assembly passed an act reviewing and relocating that part of the road leading from Thornton to Lockport.

4Blackberry Creek rises in Kane County and flows south into the Fox River in Kendall County.
Albert H. Horton, Water Resources of Illinois (Springfield: Illinois State Journal, 1914), 330;