Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force, Jan.[January] 27, 1841.

An ACT for a State Road from Shawneetown to Vienna.
1

Com’rs[Commissioners] to locate road.

Time & place of meeting.

To be sworn.

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That William Christen, of Gallatin county, Albert Rose, of Hardin county, and Abraham S. Barger, Senior, of Pope county, be and they are hereby appointed commissioners to view, mark and locate a road from Shawneetown, in Gallatin county, to Vienna, in Johnson county. Said commissioners, or a majority of them, shall meet at the house of Albert Rose, on the first day of April next, or within three months thereafter; and after being duly sworn, by some justice of the peace, faithfully to discharge the duties required of them by this act, shall proceed to view, mark and locate said road, on the nearest and best route, and on the best ground for a permanent road, so as to intersect the road leading from Golconda to Pinckneyville, at or near the bridge on Big Bay creek, where said road crosses the same.2

Report.

Compensat’n.[Compensation]

Sec. 2. Said commissioners shall, at the first term of the county commissioners’ court, in the respective counties through which said road may run or pass, make report of the road so marked and located; whose duty it shall be to cause said road to be opened and kept in repair, as other State roads3 are. Said commissioners shall receive a just compensation

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for their services, out of the treasury of the counties in which they reside, respectively, by order of the county commissioners’ courts.

Approved, January 27, 1841.

1George W. Waters introduced HB 40 to the House of Representatives on December 16, 1840. The House referred it to the Committee on State Roads on December 21. The House passed the bill sometime before January 19, 1841, when the Senate read it for the first time. The Senate passed the bill the next day. The Council of Revision approved the bill on January 27 and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 125, 135, 141, 255, 275, 284, 290; Illinois Senate Journal. 1840. 12th G. A., 181, 185.

2Section one of HB 40 appeared almost verbatim in HB 85, which the General Assembly passed as an act that became law on February 19, 1841.

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.