Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force March 4, 1837.

AN ACT to review and relocate a part of the state road leading from Frankfort to Jonesboro’.
1

Commissioners appointed

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That Harper Wiley of Franklin county, and John Cochran of Union county, be and they are hereby appointed commissioners to review, mark, and locate a road from Bainbridge’s store2 to Jonesboro’ on the nearest and best ground to Jonesboro’, and all that part of said road lying between said store and Jonesboro’, is hereby vacated.

When and where to meet

To be sworn.
Oath.
Duty.

Sec. 2. Said commissioners shall meet at the house of Allen Bainbridge in Franklin county, on the second Monday of May next, or within one month thereafter, and after being first duly sworn before some justice of the peace faithfully to perform the duties required of them by this act, shall proceed to review, mark, and locate said road, and shall make duplicate reports to the county commissioners’ clerks of their respective counties, and by them to be filed in their respective offices of the principal points by which said road passes in said counties.

Road to be a public highway

Compensation

Sec. 3. Said road when so laid out, shall be a public highway, and the county commissioners’ courts of the said counties shall cause the same to be opened four poles wide, and to be worked and kept in repair as other state roads;3 the respective county commissioners’ courts of said

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counties shall allow said commissioners a reasonable compensation for their services, to be paid out of their respective county treasuries.

Approved March 4, 1837.

1On February 13, 1837, John Dougherty introduced HB 268 in the House of Representatives. On March 2, the House passed the bill. Senate. On March 4, the Senate passed the bill. That same day, the Council of Revision approved the bill, and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 314, 577, 707, 732, 799, 841, 849, 855; Illinois Senate Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 587, 606, 627-28, 634.

2Located in Bainbridge, Illinois.

3State 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.