In force, Feb.[February] 18th, 1837.
AN ACT to change a State road therein named.
1Commissioners appointed to review and relocate said road.
Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois represented in the General Assembly, That Daniel Travis, Joshua Woosley and William Devenport be, and they are hereby appointed commissioners, whose duty it shall be, or a majority
of them, to review, re-mark, and relocate so much of the State road2 running from Springfield in Sangamon county to Ottawa in La Salle county, as lies in the Walnut Grove in the county of Tazewell.3
When and where to meet.
Sec. 2. Said commissioners, or a majority of them, shall meet at some suitable place in said
Grove, in the month of April next, or as soon thereafter as practicable and proceed
to review and relocate said part of said road in such manner as will best subserve
the public convenience and do the least injury to farms and improvements.
Shall mark the route and drive stakes.
Sec. 3. The said commissioners shall mark the route of the said road on the trees where the
route shall run through timbered land, and also at the end of every quarter of a mile,
firmly driven in the ground durable stakes.
Duty of com. court of Tazewell county.
Road shall not be altered except by legislature.
Sec. 4. When the road shall be thus laid out, it shall
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be the duty of the county commissioners court of the county of Tazewell, to cause the same to be opened four poles wide and to be worked upon and kept in
repair as other public roads; and the said road shall be deemed a state road, and shall not be altered or turned
out of its course under any pretence whatever except by an act of the Legislature.
Commissioners shall make out map of road.
Sec. 5. The said commissioners, as soon after locating said road as practicable, shall make
out and return to the county commissioners court a complete map of the route of said road, and it shall be the duty of the said court to cause due entry to be made of record of the said report.
Compensation.
Sec. 6. Said commissioners shall receive for their services such compensation as the county commissioners court of Tazewell county shall think proper to allow them.
This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage.
Approved, 18th February, 1837.
1On January 16, 1837, Benjamin Mitchell in the Senate introduced the petition of citizens of Tazewell County, requesting an alteration to a state road running through the county. The Senate
referred the bill to a select committee. In response to this petition, Mitchell of
the select committee introduced SB 135 in the Senate on January 30. On February 2, the Senate passed the bill. On February
3, the House of Representatives passed the bill. On February 18, the Council of Revision approved the bill, and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 452, 565, 600; Illinois Senate Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 223, 317, 328, 336, 401-402, 439, 459.
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.
3Walnut Grove eventually became part of Woodford County when it was formed in 1841. It lay west of Eureka.
William H. Perrin, The Past and Present of Woodford County, Illinois (Chicago: William LeBaron, Jr., 1878), 310.
Printed Document, 2 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Tenth General Assembly (Vandalia, IL: William Walters, 1837), 216-17, GA Session: 10-1