Elijah Parish Lovejoy

During the winter and spring, he taught at China Academy in Maine. Dissatisfied with teaching, Lovejoy considered moving to the American South or westward to the Northwest Territory. His former teachers at Waterville College advised him that he would best serve God in the West (now considered the American Midwest).[15]

In May 1827, he went to Boston to earn money for his journey, having settled on the free state of Illinois as his destination.[16] Unsuccessful at finding work, he started for Illinois by foot. He stopped in New York City in mid-June to try to find work. He eventually landed a position with the Saturday Evening Gazette as a newspaper subscription peddler. For nearly five weeks, he worked to sell subscriptions.[17]

Struggling with his finances, he wrote to Jeremiah Chaplin, president of Waterville College, explaining his situation. Chaplin sent the money that his former student needed.[17] Before embarking on his journey westward, Lovejoy wrote a poem which later seemed to prophesy his death:[18]

In 1829, Lovejoy became a co-editor with T. J. Miller of the St. Louis Times, which promoted the candidacy of Henry Clay for president of the United States.[11][4] Working at the Times introduced him to like-minded community leaders, many of whom were members of the American Colonization Society. They supported sending freed American blacks to Africa, considering it a kind of "repatriation."[11] Opponents of the ACS including Frederick Douglass noted most African Americans had been native-born for generations and considered their future to be in the U.S.[20] Among Lovejoy's new acquaintances were prominent St. Louis attorneys and slaveholders such as Edward Bates (later U.S. Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln); Hamilton R. Gamble, later Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court; and his brother Archibald Gamble.[11]

Lovejoy occasionally hired slaves who were leased out by owners, to work with him at the paper.[11] Among them was William Wells Brown, who later recounted his experience in a memoir. Brown described Lovejoy as "a very good man, and decidedly the best master that I had ever had. I am chiefly indebted to him, and to my employment in the printing office, for what little learning I obtained while in slavery."[21][11]

Reverend David Nelson influenced Lovejoy's antislavery views[11]

Lovejoy struggled with his interest in religion, often writing to his parents about his sinfulness and rebellion against God. He attended revival meetings in 1831 led by William S. Potts, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, that rekindled his interest in religion for a time. However, Lovejoy admitted to his parents that "gradually these feelings all left me, and I returned to the world a more hardened sinner than ever."[11]

A year later, Lovejoy found the call to God he had been yearning for. In 1832, influenced by Christian revivalist meetings led by abolitionist David Nelson, he joined the First Presbyterian Church and decided to become a preacher.[11] He sold his interest in the Times, and returned East to study at Princeton Theological Seminary.[11] While he was at Princeton, Lovejoy debated the question of slavery with an abolitionist named Bradford.[22] Although Lovejoy had opposed abolitionism during the debate, after returning to St. Louis he would write to Bradford repeatedly asking him to write articles for his newspaper.[22]

After graduation, he went to Philadelphia, where he became an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church on April 18, 1833.[11]

In 1833, a group of Protestants in St. Louis offered to finance a religious newspaper if Lovejoy would agree to return and edit it. Lovejoy accepted and on November 22, 1833, he published the first issue of the St. Louis Observer.[11][4] His editorials criticized both the Catholic Church and slavery.[23][11] By 1830, sixty percent of the population of St. Louis was Catholic, and the proprietors of the Observer tasked Lovejoy with countering the increasing influence of Catholicism.[23]

From the fall of 1833 to the summer 1836, Lovejoy regularly published articles criticizing the Catholic Church and church doctrine.[23] Some were written by Lovejoy, while others were contributed by other authors.[23] Initially, he criticized Catholic beliefs such as transubstantiation, clerical celibacy, and the influence of Catholicism on foreign governments.[23] He also argued that "Popery" undermined the fundamental principles of American democracy.[23] Local Catholics and clergy were offended by these attacks and regularly responded in articles of their own in The Shepherd of the Times, a Catholic newspaper funded by Bishop Joseph Rosati.[11][23]

In 1834, the St. Louis Observer began to increase its coverage of slavery, the most controversial issue of the day.[11] At first, Lovejoy resisted calling himself an abolitionist, because he disliked the negative connotations associating abolitionism with social unrest.[23] Even as he expressed antislavery views, he claimed to be an "emancipationist" rather than an "abolitionist."[22] In the spring of 1835, the Missouri Republican advocated the gradual emancipation of slaves in Missouri, and Lovejoy voiced his support through the Observer.[11] Lovejoy urged antislavery groups in Missouri to push for the issue to be addressed during a proposed state constitutional convention.[11] To their dismay, the editors of both newspapers soon found that their "moderate" proposal to end slavery gradually could not be discussed without igniting a polarizing political debate.[11]

Over time, Lovejoy became bolder and more outspoken about his antislavery views, advocating the outright emancipation of all slaves on religious and moral grounds.[23] Lovejoy condemned slavery and "implored all Christians who owned slaves to recognize that slaves were human beings who possessed a soul,"[23] and famously wrote:

Slavery, as it exists among us . . . is demonstrably an evil. In every community where it exists, it presses like a nightmare on the body politic. Or, like the vampire, it slowly and imperceptibly sucks away the life-blood of society, leaving it faint and disheartened to stagger along the road of improvement.[23][24]

Lovejoy's views on slavery began to incite complaints and threats.[11] Pro-slavery proponents condemned anti-slavery coverage which appeared in newspapers, stating that it was against "the vital interests of the slaveholding states." Lovejoy was threatened to be tarred and feathered if he continued to publish anti-slavery content.[25]

By October 1835, there were rumors of mob action against The Observer. A group of prominent St. Louisans, including many of Lovejoy's friends, wrote a letter pleading with him to cease discussion of slavery in the newspaper. Lovejoy was away from the city at this time, and the publishers declared that no further articles on slavery would be published during his absence. They said that when he returned, he would follow a more rigorous editorial policy. Lovejoy responded by expressing disagreement with the publishers' policy. As tensions over slavery escalated in St. Louis, Lovejoy would not back down from his convictions; he sensed that he would become a martyr for the cause. He was asked to resign as editor of The Observer, to which he agreed. After the newspaper's owners released The Observer property to the moneylender who held the mortgage, the new owners asked Lovejoy to stay on as editor.[11]

Lovejoy and The Observer continued to be embroiled in controversy. In April 1836, Francis McIntosh, a free man of color and boatman, was arrested by two policemen. En route to the jail, McIntosh grabbed a knife and stabbed both men. One was killed and the other seriously injured. McIntosh attempted to escape, but was caught by a white mob, who tied him up and burned him to death. Some of the mob were brought before a grand jury to face charges. The presiding judge, Judge Luke Lawless, refused to convict anyone; he said the crime was a spontaneous mob action without any specific people to prosecute. The judge made remarks suggesting that abolitionists, including Lovejoy and The Observer, had incited McIntosh into stabbing the policemen.[11]

Lovejoy served as pastor at Upper Alton Presbyterian Church (now College Avenue Presbyterian Church). In 1837, he started the Alton Observer, also an abolitionist, Presbyterian paper.[30] Lovejoy's views on slavery became more extreme, and he called for a convention to discuss forming an Illinois state chapter of the American Anti-Slavery Society, established in Philadelphia in 1833.

Many residents of Alton began to question whether they should continue to allow Lovejoy to print in their town. After an economic crisis in March 1837, Alton citizens wondered if Lovejoy's views were contributing to hard times. They felt Southern states, or even the city of St. Louis, might not want to do business with their town if they continued to harbor such an outspoken abolitionist.[11]

Lovejoy held the Illinois Antislavery Congress at the Presbyterian church in Upper Alton on October 26, 1837. Supporters were surprised to see two pro-slavery advocates in the crowd, John Hogan and Illinois Attorney General Usher F. Linder. The Lovejoy supporters were not happy to have his enemies at the convention, but relented as the meeting was open to all parties.[31]

On November 2, 1837, Lovejoy responded to threats in a speech, saying:

As long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write and to publish whatever I please, being amenable to the laws of my country for the same.[28]

Wood engraving of the pro-slavery mob setting fire to Gilman & Godfrey's warehouse.

Lovejoy had acquired a fourth press and hid it in a warehouse owned by Winthrop Sargent Gilman and Gilford, major grocers in the area. A mob, said by Appleton's to be composed mostly of Missourians, attacked the building on the evening of November 6, 1837.[4] Pro-slavery partisans approached Gilman's warehouse, where Lovejoy had hidden his printing press.[32][33] The conflict continued. According to the Alton Observer, the mob fired shots into the warehouse. When Lovejoy and his men returned fire, they hit several people in the crowd, killing a man named Bishop.[32] After the attacking party had apparently withdrawn, Lovejoy opened the door and was instantly struck by five bullets, dying in a few minutes.[4]

Jon Meacham in his book And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle notes that Lovejoy was murdered on November 7, 1837 after he helped William Lloyd Garrison found an Illinois chapter of Garrison’s Anti-Slavery Society.[34]

Mid-19th century memorial card with Lovejoy's silhouette

Elijah Lovejoy was buried in Alton Cemetery; his grave was unmarked to prevent vandalism. The ceremony was kept small. In 1864, Thomas Dimmock "reclaimed from oblivion" Lovejoy's grave. Dimmock had "succeeded in establishing the location of the grave... in a roadway where vehicles were passing over it... Mr. Dimmock had the bones disinterred and... laid in a new grave where they would be free from trespass." He also arranged for a gravestone and helped found a committee to create a monument to the editor. Dimmock was principal orator at the dedication of a later monument erected in 1897 to commemorate Lovejoy.[35][36]

Elijah Lovejoy grave as it appeared in 2009.

The Chicago Tribune said of the grave marking and association to fund a monument:

For many years Lovejoy's grave was unmarked and in danger of utter oblivion, until one who had known him in life, Thomas Dimmock of St. Louis, . . . marked the grave with the simple stone bearing he inscription: "Hic jacet Lovejoy. Jam parce depulto." "Here lies Lovejoy: now spare his grave." It was largely through the efforts of Mr. Dimmock that ten years ago the Lovejoy Monument Association was formed . . . .[37]

• Beecher, Edward (1969). Narrative of Riots at Alton, in Connection with the Death of Rev. Elijah P Lovejoy. Mnemosyne Pub. Co.
• Brown, Justus Newton (September–October 1916). "Lovejoy's Influence on John Brown". Magazine of History with Notes and Queries. Vol. 23, no. 3–4. pp. 97–102.
• Dillon, Merton L. (1999). John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (ed.). American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press. Vol. 14, pp. 4–5. ISBN 0-19-512793-5.
• Dillon, Merton L. (1961). Elijah P. Lovejoy, Abolitionist Editor. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
• Gill, John Glanville (1959). Tide Without Turning: Elijah P. Lovejoy and Freedom of the Press. Boston: Starr King Press.
• Lawson, John D. (1916). Robert L. Howard (ed.). American State Trials: A Collection of the Important and Interesting Criminal Trials which have taken place in the United States, from the beginning of our Government to the Present Day. St. Louis: F. H. Thomas Law Book Co.
• Lovejoy, Joseph C.; Lovejoy, Owen (1838). Memoir of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy: Who was Murdered in Defence of the Liberty of the Press at Alton, Illinois, Nov. 7, 1837. New York: J. S. Taylor.
• Tanner, Henry (1971). The Martyrdom of Lovejoy: An Account of the Life, Trials, and Perils of Rev Elijah P. Lovejoy. A. M. Kelley. ISBN 0-678-00744-6. (first published in Chicago, 1881; reprint edition 1971)
• Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Lovejoy, Elijah Parish" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. pp. 34–35.