Elijah Lovejoy

At one time, Alton, Illinois was growing more rapidly than it's then-possible sister city St. Louis, both in size and close-mindedness.

The physical growth of Alton was put to an end by the establishment of Grafton, Illinois as plotted by a coalition of St Louis businessmen in order to bring more business back to the western banks of the Mississippi. The growth of close-mindedness and lack of respect for all forms of human life, not to mention the freedom of the press, were displayed by the plot to destroy Elijah Lovejoy and his anti-slavery ideas.

Elijah Parish Lovejoy began his career of speaking out against slavery in St Louis, both as a pastor of the Presbyterian Church as well as the editor-in-chief of the religious paper, the St Louis Observer. His freedom-loving editorials speaking out against the atrocities of slavery included a full account of slave Francis J. McIntosh being burned alive published in 1836. The people of slave state Missouri retaliated against Lovejoy, destroying his press and running him out of town.

Fifteen miles upstream on the opposite bank of the Mississippi, Lovejoy began editing the Alton Observer and well as establishing himself as an active member of the local Anti-Slavery Society.

Although Illinois was deemed a free state, the people there were far from matching their states' ideals with their own. After mobs in Alton destroyed Lovejoy's press three times for printing words of anti-slavery, Lovejoy secretly - or so he thought - acquired a fourth and final press from the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society.

Delivered at 3:00 am November 7, 1837, via river for optimum secrecy, Lovejoy and company moved the press to the Godfrey & Gilman warehouse to be guarded until it could be transferred safely to the Observer. However, they were detected.

That night, a mob gathered, demanding the press and threatening Lovejoy and his 20 supporters who were standing their ground to defend their property. Eventually, as the crowd grew more unruly, gunfire was exchanged, the building was lit on fire, and the press was ultimately destroyed and thrown in the river. Lovejoy was shot five times, dying in the burning building, only to be retrieved the next day. He was buried the next day on November 9th, 1937, his 35th birthday - the first journalist to die as a martyr for the the freedom on the press.

This short-lived battle between a mob and a man who fought for the freedom of the press, the freedom of mankind, was in fact the first battle of the Civil War. Almost thirty years later, perhaps fueled by the atrocities come to light through Lovejoy's efforts and murder, Emancipation was enacted and all men were free.