The undersigned your Petitioners would respectfully represent to your Hon^l Body, That a portion of the State of Iowa laying South west of the Desmoine river, and a portion of the north east corner of the State of Missouri are allmost entirely destitute of mail & Post office facilities, and that a large portion of these sections of our country are densly inhabited and other portions are fast filling up with an enterprizing, industrious and Intelligent Population, and Nature has wisely adapted these sections of our beautifull country for a cheap and rapid transmission of intelligence, owing to the eveness of the face of the country, dryness of the Roads, and there being no streams of consequence to cross, because the streams run paralell with the main thoroughfares of the country. And we would further represent to your Honourable Body, that owing to the want of mail and Post office facilities, and the present arrangement of the mails, we are longer receiving intelligence a distance of thirty miles (on a paralell line South west of the des moine River) Than we are from some of the most distant sections of the Union. For these causes and others which we assign, we pray Your Hon Body to pass a law. Providing for a mail rout—Starting at Alexandria Mo (at the mouth of the Des moine River) thence to Fort Des moine at the junction of the Racoon fork & the des moine fork of the Des moines river, by the rout of the post office ^at St. Francisville^ at Woods mill Van Buren co Iowa and Fox, Bloomfield, Drakesville Davis Co Iowa, Princeton & Knoxville to Fort Des moines the end of the route to be transported once a week both ways. Your Petitioners would further represent that all the citizens of the south west side of the Des moi[nes r]iver in the State of Iowa, and a large portion of those of Northern Missouri. would receive intelligence more direct, and at an earlier date, than by any other route now authorized by law, for the obvious reason that the mississippi river (the main channell through which most of the Eastren & southren news is derived) remain open most of the winter below the lower rapids of the Mississippi river, while above the rapids, the river remain frozen from three to four months every winter, and in the summer season when the watter is low so that Boats cannot pass the rapids cause another delay in the transmission of mails. Another reason is that this route prayed for is free from any obstructions or impassible streams, while on the route by which we now derive our news is obstructed by the lower rapids & by ice in the winter. Intelligence [?] at Burlington and there meets with delays and delayed at various points on the way, by bad roads running through low, wet, Prareries and impassible streams on account of high watter in the spring

For these causes and many others that might be assigned, We pray your Hon Body to provide by law for the above mentioned mail route for which favour we will ever pray &c