222 William Street

Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy had moved his abolitionist newspaper, The Observer from St. Louis to Alton anticipating a more friendly environment in the free state of Illinois. Sentiment toward slavery in southern Illinois was generally favorable due to the large number of settlers who moved here from Kentucky and Tennessee. A large part of the local population was opposed to Lovejoy's abolitionist views and endeavored to stop its publication by tossing his press in the Mississippi River. Lovejoy and his supporters purchased a second press and it soon met the same fate as his first, as did the third press soon after.

Determined to protect the fourth press, Lovejoy and around eighteen of his supporters took up arms and barricaded themselves in the warehouse. A large mob, said to be fueled by alcohol, demanded the defenders surrender the press and were rebuffed. Shots were fired and the defenders returned fire on the mob, one of whom, Peter Brown, was killed. This further enflamed the crowd and they attempted to set fire to the warehouse roof. When Lovejoy stepped out of an upper floor window to fire on the arsonists he was shot five times. The defenders surrendered the press and it was destroyed and thrown in the river. Lovejoy was buried the next day on his 35th birthday.

News of his death stirred the abolitionist movement throughout the country and reaction was swift. Lovejoy was hailed as a martyr to freedom of the press by Wendell Phillips in a speech at Boston's Faneuil Hall and his name became known in both north and south.

"The incidents which preceded and accompanied, and followed the catastrophe of Mr. Lovejoy's death, point it out as an epocha in the annals of human liberty. They have given a shock as of an earthquake throughout this continent, which will be felt in the most distant regions of the earth."

Elijah Lovejoy left his strict Christian household in Maine to save souls in the West. After arriving in the four year old town of Hillsboro, Montgomery County in southern Illinois he saw little opportunity to save the heathens he observed there and decided to save souls in St. Louis instead.

In 1832, after hearing the Rev. David Nelson preach a revival over several weeks at the First Presbyterian Church, he had the personal conversion experience he had long prayed for. He also was attracted a second message preached by Nelson—the moral necessity of ending slavery.

After relocating to St. Louis he created the St. Louis Observer. In his very first issue he established a reputation as an extremist and a bigot when he excoriated Catholicism and Papism with vitriolic language. In St. Louis, a former French and Spanish provincial capital, there was a large Catholic population and there had been a general toleration of religious differences as the city had grown.

He preached against alcohol, Sabbath breaking, and profanity, and slavery. He denounced imposing abolition, instead hoping that argument and religious conversion would change the hearts of slave holders who would see the error of their ways and free their slaves. Despite the moderation of this stance, it still outraged the Southern dominated city.

After fleeing to Alton for safety after his printing presses were continuously destroyed, the small town offered him a conditional welcome. He promised them his paper would be purely civic and Christian.

In January 1837, the new Alton Observer began publication. The very first issue contained a blistering attack on slavery and slavery apologists.

In the spring of 1837, he called on the citizens of the town to sign a state petition to abolish slavery. He urged protests in town pressing an anti-slavery message. While pleading for his safety and freedom of speech he said:

"I, Mr. Chairman, have not desired, or asked any compromise. I have asked for nothing but to be protected in my rights as a citizen--rights which God has given me, and which are guaranteed to me by the constitution of my country. Have I, sir, been guilty of any infraction of the laws? Whose good name have I injured? When, and where, have I published anything injurious to the reputation of Alton? Have I not, on the other hand, labored, in common with the rest of my fellow-citizens, to promote the reputation and interests of this City? What, sir, I ask, has been my offence? Put your finger upon it—define it—and I stand ready to answer for it. If I have committed any crime, you can easily convict me. You have public sentiment in your favor. You have juries, and you have your attorney, and I have no doubt you can convict me. But if I have been guilty of no violation of law, why am I hunted up and down continually like a partridge upon the mountains? Why am I threatened with the tar-barrel? Why am I waylaid every day, and from night to night, and my life in jeopardy every hour?