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- Elijah Parish Lovejoy was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, and newspaper editor who was murdered by a mob in Alton, Illinois for his abolitionist views. He had a deeply religious upbringing, as his father was a Congregational minister and his mother a devout Christian. He attended Waterville College (now Colby College) in his home state of Maine, and graduated at the top of his class, with first class honors. Afterwards, he traveled to Illinois and, after realizing that the area was largely unsettled, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1827. There, Lovejoy worked as an editor of an anti-Jacksonian newspaper and ran a school. Five years later, influenced by the Revivalist movement, he chose to become a preacher. He attended the Princeton Theological Seminary and became an ordained Presbyterian preacher. Once he returned to St. Louis, he set up a church and became the editor of a weekly religious newspaper, the St. Louis Observer. He wrote a number of editorials, critical of other religions and slavery. In May 1836, he was run out of town by his opponents after he chastised Judge Luke E. Lawless, who had chosen not to charge individuals linked to a mob lynching of a free black man. Lovejoy moved to Alton, Illinois, where he became editor of the Alton Observer. On three occasions, his printing press was destroyed by pro-slavery factions who wanted to stop his publishing abolitionist views. On November 7, 1837, a pro-slavery mob approached a warehouse belonging to merchant Winthrop Sargent Gilman that held Lovejoy's fourth printing press. Lovejoy and his supporters exchanged gunfire with the mob. The leaders of the mob decided to burn down Gilman's warehouse, so they got a ladder and set it alongside the building. They attempted to climb up ladder to set fire to the warehouse's wooden roof, but Lovejoy and one of his supporters stopped them. After the mob set up their ladder along the side of the building for a second time, Lovejoy went outside to intervene, but he was promptly shot five times with a shotgun and died on the spot. Lovejoy was hailed as a martyr by abolitionists across the country. He was honored by the naming of monuments and buildings in his memory. His brother Owen entered politics after his death and became the leader of the Illinois abolitionists. Lovejoy also had a cousin, Nathan A. Farwell, who served as a U.S. Senator from Maine.
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- Elijah Parish Lovejoy was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, and newspaper editor who was murdered by a mob in Alton, Illinois for his abolitionist views. He had a deeply religious upbringing, as his father was a Congregational minister and his mother a devout Christian. He attended Waterville College (now Colby College) in his home state of Maine, and graduated at the top of his class, with first class honors.
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