The undersigned your petitioners would respectfully represent to your Hon. Boddy ^that,^ that, portion of the state of Iowa laying south west of the Desmoines River and a portion of the North East corner of the state of Missouri are allmost entirely destitute of Mail and Post Office facilities, and that some portions of these sections of our country are now densely inhabited and other portions are fast filling up with an industrious, enterprising and inteligent population, and that Nature has wisely adapted these sections of Our beautifull country to a cheep and rapid transmission of inteligence owing to the evenness of the face of the Country, dryness of the roads, and there being no considerable streems to cross, they (the streems) running parallel with the main thoroughfares of the county. Your petitioners would further represent that owing to the present lack of mail and Post Office facilities and the arrangement of the Mails, that we are longer, receiveing Inteligence on a line parallel with and south west of the Desmoines River, a distance of thirty miles than we are from some of the most distant

---

sections of the Union For these causes and others that we will assign, we pray your Hon. Boddy to pass a Law providing for a Mail Rout starting at Alexandria cituated at the confluence of the Mississippi and Desmoines Rivers in the state of Missouri, thence to Fort Desmoines at the junction of the Raccoon fork and the Desmoines fork of the Desmoines River in the state of Iowa, by the way of Woods Mill Vanburen Co. Io. Fox Post Office Davis Co. Io. Bloomfield Davis Co. Io. Drakesville Davis Co. Io. Princeton Monroe Co. Io. Knoxville Marion Co. Io, thence to the end of the Rout, Fort Desmoines, to be transported once a week both ways. Your petitioners would further represent to your Hon. Boddy that all of the Citizens of the south west side of the Desmoines River in the state of Iowa and a large portion of those of Northern Missouri would receive Inteligence much moore direct and at a much earlier date by this rout, than any rout now authorized by Law, for these verry obvious reasons. The Mississippi River the main channel, through which most of the Eastern and southen news is derived by these sections of the country, remains open, free from ice and in a condition to pass boats most all of every winter below the Desmoines Rapids in the Mississippi River, while above the Rapids the River is frozen

---

over and obstructed by runing ice from three to four months in every winter, and in the summer season when the water is low, so low that Boats cannot pass the Rapids, they cause delay in the transmission of news. Another reason is, that this rout prayed for is free from any obstructions in the way of impassable streems or bad roads While on the other hand the Rout through which we ^now^ derive most all of our news from those directions is obstructed by the Desmoines Rapids in the summer, ice in the winter. Inteligence gets to Burlington and there meets with delay on account of the arangment of the Mails, delayed at various points along the way by this last mentioned cause, Obstructed with bad roads across low wet flat parairies and by impassable streems in concequence of high water and ice except at particular seasons of the year, For these causes and many others that might be mentioned, we pray your Hon. Boddy to provide by Law for the afore-mentioned Mail Rout, For which favor we will every pray and if granted we will be ever greatfull

Subscribed