Menard County Circuit Court

City: Petersburg

County: Menard

State: Illinois

Upon Menard County's creation in February 1839, the Illinois General Assembly placed its circuit court in the First Judicial Circuit. Soon after, it was placed in the Eighth Judicial Circuit, which comprised a very large proportion of Abraham Lincoln's legal practice. In 1857, it was placed in the Twenty-First Judicial Circuit, along with four other central Illinois counties.

An Act to Establish the Counties of Menard, Logan, and Dane; An Act Dividing the State into Judicial Circuits; Daniel W. Stowell et al., eds., The Papers of Abraham Lincoln: Legal Documents and Cases (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 2:211-13; "An Act Establishing the Twenty-First Judicial Circuit," 7 February 1857, Laws of Illinois (1857), 8-9.