Adams County Circuit Court

City: Quincy

County: Adams

State: Illinois

In 1831, the Illinois General Assembly assigned Adams County to the Fifth Judicial Circuit. In 1851, it moved to the Fifteenth Circuit. While Abraham Lincoln did not practice in this court, he did handle seventeen cases from there, which went on appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court or moved from there on a change of venue.

“An Act Supplemental to the Several Acts Regulating the Supreme and Circuit Courts of This State,” 16 February 1831, The Laws of Illinois (1831), 44-47; An Act Dividing the State into Judicial Circuits; An Act Dividing the State into Judicial Circuits; An Act to Establish Circuit Courts; "An Act to Establish the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Judicial Circuits, and for Other Purposes," 12 February 1851, General Laws of Illinois, (1851), 82-84; For Lincoln's cases, search under Court Name, "Adams County Circuit Court," Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org.