The undersigned your petitioners would respectfully represent to your Honourable 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 and allmost entirely destitue of mail and 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 Desmoine 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^l Body to pass a law providing for a mail rout Starting at Alexandria Mo (at the mouth of the Desmoin[e?] River) Thence to fort Desmoine at the junction of the Racoon Fork & the Desmoine fork of the Desmoine River, by the route of the post office at St Francisville Mo, Woods mill, Van Buren Co Iowa, and Fox, Bloomfiel[d?] Drakesville Davis Co Iowa, Princetown & Knoxville to

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Fort Desmoine 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 Desmoine river 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 eastern & Southern news is derived) remain open most of the winter below the lower r[apid?]s of the Mississippi river while above the rapids the river remains 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 the route by which we now receive our news is obstructed by the lower rapids & by ice in the winter. Intelligence arrives at Burlington and there meets with delay & delayed at various points on the way, by bad roads running through low, wet Prareries and impassible streams on acct of high watter in spring

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