Elijah P. Lovejoy Illinois History

Elijah Parish Lovejoy Born in Maine, 1802 Puritan upbringing Walks from Maine to Illinois [1827] Moves to St. Louis to continue teaching Editor

Unsettled Returns to the East to attend divinity school at Princeton Back in St. Louis, Lovejoy establishes The St. Louis Observer Rallied Against: Catholicism Tobacco Use Alcohol Use Working on Sundays Increasingly publishes Anti-slavery material

Danger in St. Louis Missouri is a slave state As Lovejoy’s abolitionist rhetoric increased, it became dangerous for him to live in STL Pro-slavery advocates break into The Observer and damage the printing press

Move to Alton Lovejoy arrives with the remains of his press St. Louis residents come to Alton and throw his press in the river Supporters of Lovejoy in Alton purchase him a new press Economic panic, 2nd press destroyed Third press > destroyed Orders a 4th press

The Colored American: Sept. 16, 1837 “…the mandate came. ‘Let that minister of mischief, the Alton Observer, be immediately ejected,’ (see Missouri Republican of last week,) and Alton, boasting, swaggering Alton, with a servile bow, answered, ‘Yes, master, it shall be done,’ and it is done!” “Many things yet remain to be done, so say the sovereign mob. Mr. Lovejoy is threatened and has once been stopped in the street, though no violence was done to him, in consequence of sickness in his family. The storm rages furiously, but Christ is our Pilot and all will yet be well.”

“Sir, I dare not flee away from Alton “Sir, I dare not flee away from Alton.... No sir, the contest has commenced here; and here it must be finished. Before God and you all, I here pledge myself to continue it—if need be, till death. If I fall, my grave shall be made in Alton” -Elijah Lovejoy, 1837

Fourth Press Arrives

Aftermath Mob members are not charged Alton continues economic and social decline Abolition has its first martyr Many use the killing to show a natural link between slavery and violence