menu_book Chapter 7

Section 7 of Historic Adventures, Tales from American History. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. Historic Adventures, Tales from American History by Robert S. Holland. Chapter 5. The Fate of Lovejoy's Printing Press.

Ever since the 13 colonies that lay along the Atlantic coast had become a nation, ambitious men had heard the call, Go west, young man, go west! There was plenty of fertile land in the country beyond the Allegheny Mountains, and it was free to any who would settle on it.

Adventure beckoned men to come and help in founding new states, and many who thought the villages of New England already overcrowded betook themselves to the inviting West. One such youth was Elijah Parrish Lovejoy, who came from the little town of Albion, Maine, and who, after graduating at Waterville College, had become a schoolteacher. This did not satisfy him. He wanted to see more of the world than lay

in the village of his birth, and when he was 25 years old, in May 1827, he set out westward. The young man was a true son of the Puritans, brought up to believe in many ideas that were already often in conflict with the views of men of the South and West. He reached the small city of St. Louis in the pioneer country of Missouri, and there he found a chance to teach school. He wrote for several newspapers that were being started, and in the course of the next year edited

a political paper that was urging the election of Henry Clay as president. His interest in politics grew, and he might have sought some public office himself had he not suddenly become convinced that he was meant to be a minister and determined to prepare for that work at Princeton Seminary. When he returned to St. Louis in 1833, his friends helped him to found a weekly religious paper called the St. Louis Observer. The editor found time from his newspaper work to ride into the

country and preach at the small churches that were springing up at every crossroads. Missouri was more southern than northern, and he saw much of slave-owning people. It was not long before he decided that Negro slavery was wrong and that the only way to right the wrong was to do away with it altogether. He began to attack slavery in his newspaper and in his sermons, and soon slavery men in that part of Missouri came to consider him as one of their most bitter foes. Lovejoy had

married and expected to make St. Louis his permanent home, but neither all the men who were interested in the Observer nor all the members of his church approved of his arguments against slaveholding. And when he was away at a religious meeting, the proprietors of his paper issued a statement promising that the editor would deal more gently with the question of slavery in the future. When Lovejoy returned and read this statement, he was indignant.

He was not a man to fear public opinion, and he attacked his enemies more ardently than ever. However, the law of the land permitted slavery, and many of the chief citizens in the frontier country approved of it. They hated the abolitionists, as those who wanted to do away with slavery were called. When men were suspected of having help to free slaves or of sheltering runaway Negroes, they were taken into the country and given 200 lashes with a whip as a lesson.

Sometimes abolitionists were tarred and feathered and ridden out of town. Often their houses were burned and their property destroyed. Lovejoy knew that he might have to face all this, but the spirit of the Puritan stock from which he sprang would not let him turn from his course. He went on printing articles against the evils of slavery. He denounced the right of a white man to separate colored husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, or to send his

slaves to the market to be sold to the highest bidder, or to whip or ill-use them as if they had no feelings. There was danger that the young editor would be mobbed, and the owners of the observer took the paper out of his charge. Friends, however, who believed in a free press, bought it and gave it back to him. Waves of public opinion, now for Lovejoy, now against him, swept through St. Louis. By the end of 1835, mobs had attacked abolitionists in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia,

and the news fanned the flames of resentment against them in Missouri. Lovejoy had good reason to know the danger of his position. One September day, he went out to a camp meeting at the little town of Potosi. He learned that two men had waited half a day in the village, planning to tar and feather him when he arrived. But he was late and they had left. When he returned to St. Louis, he found that handbills had been distributed throughout the city, calling on the

people to tear down the office of the Observer. A newspaper named the Missouri Argus urged patriotic men to mob the New England editor. Crowds gathered on street corners turned dark, lowering looks upon him as he passed, and every male brought him threatening letters. He would not, however, stop either writing or preaching against slavery. His work constantly called him on journeys to small towns, sometimes several days' ride from his home. Late in 1835, he was at a

meeting in Marion when reports came that St. Louis was in an uproar, that men who opposed slavery were being whipped in the streets and that no one suspected of being an abolitionist would be allowed to stay there. Lovejoy had left his wife ill in bed. He started to ride back, a friend going some 70 miles with him half the journey. The friend urged him not to stay in St. Louis, pointing out that his young and delicate wife would have to suffer as well as he. Travelers they met all warned

him that he would not be safe in the city. He rode on to St. Charles, where he had left his wife. He talked with her, and she told him to go on to his newspaper office if he thought duty called him there. St. Louis was all excitement and alarm. The newspapers had attacked the observer so bitterly that the owners had stopped printing it. A mob had planned to wreck the office, but had postponed the task for a few days. Men went to Lovejoy and told him he would not be safe in

the streets by day or night. Even the men of his church would not stand by him. A religious paper declared that they would soon free the church of the rotten sheep in it, by which they met Elijah Lovejoy and others who opposed slavery. This Yankee, however, like many others who had gone to that border country in the days when bitterness ran high, had a heroic sense of duty. He wrote and printed a letter to the people stating that men had no right to own their brothers, no matter what

the law might say. The letter caused more excitement than ever. The owners of the Observer went to Lovejoy and requested him to retire as its editor. For two days it was a question what the angry mobs would do to him. Then a little better feeling set in. Men came to him and told him that he must go on printing his paper, or there would be no voice of freedom in all that part of the country. A friend bought the newspaper from its owners and urged Lovejoy to write as boldly as before.

This friend, however, suggested that he should move the newspaper across the state line to Alton, Illinois, where feeling was not so intense. Lovejoy agreed and set out for Alton. But while he was preparing to issue the paper there, the same friend and others wrote him that his pen was so much needed in St. Louis that he must come back.

He did so, and the Observer continued its existence in St. Louis until June 1836. There was so much strife and ill feeling, however, in Missouri that the editor decided his newspaper would be better supported and would exert more influence in Illinois. Accordingly, he arranged to move his printing press

to the town of Alton in July. Just before he left St. Louis, he published severe criticisms of a judge of that city who had sided with slave owners, and these articles roused even greater resentment

among the rabble who hated Lovejoy's freedom of speech. If some of the people of Alton were glad to have this fearless editor come to their town, many were not. Slavery was too sore a subject for them to wish it talked about publicly. Many people all through that part of the country looked upon an abolitionist

as a man who delighted in stirring up ill feeling. Lovejoy sent his printing press to Alton by steamboat, and it was delivered at the wharf on a Sunday morning about daybreak. The steamboat company had agreed to land the press on Monday, and Lovejoy refused to move it from the dock on the Sabbath. Early Monday morning, five or six men went down to the riverbank and destroyed the printing press. This was the young editor's welcome by the lawless element, but next day,

the better class of citizens, thoroughly ashamed of the outrage, met and pledged themselves to repay Lovejoy for the loss of his press. These people denounced the act of the mob, but at the same time they expressed their disapproval of abolitionists. They wanted order and quiet and hoped that Lovejoy would not stir up more trouble. The editor bought a new press and issued his first paper in Alton on September 8, 1836. Many people subscribed to it and it appeared regularly

until the following August. Lovejoy, however, would speak his mind and again and again declared that he was absolutely opposed to slavery and that the evil custom must come to an end. This led to murmurs from the slavery party and slanders were spread concerning the editor's character. All freedom-loving men had to weather such storms in those days, and Lovejoy, like a great many others, stuck to his principles at a heavy cost.

The murmurs and slanders grew. On July 8, 1837, posters announced that a meeting would be held at the Market House to protest against the articles in the Alton Observer. The meeting condemned Lovejoy's writings and speeches and voted that abolitionism must be suppressed in the town. This was the early thunder that heralded the approach of a gathering storm. The Yankee editor showed no intention of giving up his stand against slavery, but preached and wrote against it at

every opportunity. As a result, threats of destroying the press of The Observer were heard on the streets of Alton, and newspapers in neighboring cities encouraged ill feeling against the editor. The Missouri Republic, a paper printed in St. Louis, tried to convince the people of Alton that it was a public danger to have such men as Lovejoy in their midst, and condemned the anti-slavery societies that were being formed in that part of the country. Two attempts were made

to break into his printing office during the early part of the summer, but each time the attackers were driven off by Lovejoy's friends. The editor went to a friend's house to perform a marriage ceremony on the evening of August 21, 1837. His wife and little boy were ill at home, and on his return he stopped at an apothecary's to get some medicine for them. His house was about a half mile out of town. As he left the main street he met a crowd of men and boys.

They did not recognize him at once and he hurried past them. But soon some began to suspect who he was and shouted his name to the rest. Those in the rear urged the leaders to attack him, but those in front held back. Some began to throw sticks and stones at him, and one armed with a club pushed up to him,

denouncing him for being an abolitionist. At last, a number linked arms and pushed past him, and then turning about in the road stopped him. There were cries of, Tar and feather him, ride him on a rail, and other threats.

Lovejoy told them they might do as they pleased with him, but he had a request to make. His wife was ill, and he wanted someone to take the medicine to her without alarming her. One of the men volunteered to do this. Then the editor, standing at bay, argued with them.

You had better let me go home, he said. You have no right to detain me. I have never injured you. There was more denouncing, jostling, and shoving, but the leaders, after a short talk, allowed Lovejoy to go on toward his house.

Meantime, however, another band had gone to the newspaper office between 10 and 11 o'clock, and seeing by the lights in the building that men were still at work there, had begun to throw stones at the windows. A crowd gathered to watch the attack. The mayor and some of the leading citizens hurried to the building

and argued with the ringleaders. A prominent merchant told them that if they would wait until the next morning, he would break into the newspaper office with them and help them take out the press and the other articles, stow them on a boat, put the editor on top, and send them all down the Mississippi River together. But the crowd did not want to wait.

The stones began to strike some of Lovejoy's assistants inside the building, and they ran out by a rear door. As soon as the office was empty, the leaders rushed in and broke the printing press, type, and everything else in the building. Next morning, the slavery men in Alton said that the abolitionists had been silenced for the time at least. They looked upon Lovejoy and men of his kind as thorn in the flesh of their peaceful community. There were still a small number of

freedom-loving people in Alton, however, and these stood back of Elijah Lovejoy. Although two printing presses had now been destroyed, these men called a meeting and decided that the Observer must continue to be printed. Money was promised, and the editor prepared to set up his press for the third time. He issued a short note to the public, in which he said, I now appeal to you and all the friends of law and order to come to the rescue. If you will sustain me by the help of God, the press

shall be again established at this place, and shall be sustained come what will. Let the experiment be fairly tried, whether the liberty of speech and of the press is to be enjoyed in Illinois or not. The money was raised, and the dauntless spokesman for freedom sent to Cincinnati for supplies for his new office. That autumn, enemies scattered pamphlets accusing Lovejoy and other abolitionists of various crimes against the country. Although few people believed them,

the circulars increased the hostile feelings and disturbed many of the editor's friends. Some of the latter began to doubt whether the Observer ought to continue its stirring articles. Some thought it should be only a religious paper. But Lovejoy answered that he felt it was his duty to speak out and protest against the great evil of slavery. He finally offered to resign if the supporters of the paper thought it best for him to do so.

They could not come to any decision, and so let him continue his course. The third printing press arrived in Alton on September 21st, while Lovejoy was away attending a church meeting. The press was landed from the steamboat a little after sunset and was protected by a number of friends of the Observer. It was carted to a large warehouse to be stored. As it passed through the street, some men cried,

There goes the abolition press! Stop it! Stop it! But no one tried to injure it. The mayor of Alton declared that the press should be protected and placed a constable at the door of the warehouse with orders to remain till a certain hour.

As soon as this man left, 10 or 12 others, with handkerchiefs tied over their faces as disguise, broke into the warehouse, rolled the press across the street to the river, broke it into pieces, and threw it into the Mississippi.

The mayor arrived and protested, but the men paid no attention to him. Lovejoy's business had called him to the town of St. Charles near St. Louis, and he preached there while his third press was being attacked. After his sermon in the evening, he was sitting chatting with a clergyman and another friend

when a young man came in and slipped a note into his hand. The note read, Mr. Lovejoy, be watchful as you come from church tonight. A friend. Lovejoy showed the note to the two other men, and the clergyman invited him to stay at his house.

The editor declined, however, and walked to his mother-in-law's residence with his two friends. No one stopped them, and when they came to the house, Lovejoy and the clergyman went in and sat down to chat in a room on the second floor. About ten o'clock, they heard a knock on the door at the foot of the stairs. Mrs. Lovejoy's mother went to the door and asked what was wanted. Voices answered, We want to see Mr. Lovejoy. Is he in? The editor called down, Yes, I am here.

As soon as the door was open, two men rushed upstairs and into the sitting room. They ordered Lovejoy to go downstairs, and when he resisted, struck him with their fists. Mrs. Lovejoy heard the noise and came running from her room. A crowd now filled the hall, and she had to fight her way through them. Several men tried to drag the editor out of the house,

but his wife clung to him and, aided by her mother and sister, finally persuaded the assailants to leave. Exhausted by the struggle, Mrs. Lovejoy fainted. While her husband was trying to help her, the mob came back and, paying no attention to the sick woman,

insisted that they were going to ride Lovejoy out of town. By this time, a few respectable citizens had heard the noise and came to his aid. A second time, the rabble was driven away, but they stayed in the yard and made the night hideous with their threats to the abolitionist. Presently, some men went up to Lovejoy's room the third time, and one of them gave him a note which demanded that he leave St. Charles by 10 o'clock the next morning. Lovejoy's friends begged him to send out an answer, promising that he would leave.

Although he at first declined to do this, he finally yielded to their urging. He wrote, I have already taken my passage on the stage to leave tomorrow morning at least by nine o'clock. This note was carried out to the crowd on the lawn and read to them. His friends thought the mob would scatter after that,

and they did for a time, but after listening to violent speeches, returned again. The noise was now so threatening that Lovejoy's friends begged him to fly from the house. His wife added her pleadings to theirs, and at last he stole out unnoticed by a door at the rear. He hated to leave his wife in such a dangerous situation, however, and so after waiting a short time, he went back. His friends reproached him for returning, and their reproaches were justified,

for like hounds scenting the fox, the mob menaced the house more noisily than ever. Lovejoy saw that he must leave again in order to protect his wife and friends. This he succeeded in doing and walked about a mile to the residence of Major Sibley. This friend led him a horse and he rode out of town to the house of another friend four miles away. Next day, Mrs. Lovejoy joined them and they went on together to Alton.

One of the very first people they met in Alton was a man from St. Charles who had been among those who had broken into their house the night before. Mrs. Lovejoy was alarmed at seeing him in Illinois because the mob in St. Charles had declared that they were going to drive Lovejoy out of that part of the country.

In order to quiet her fears, her husband asked some friends to come to his house. And ten men, well armed, spent the next night guarding it while he himself kept a loaded musket at his side. The storm clouds were gathering about his devoted head. Even the leading citizens of this Illinois town now felt it was Lovejoy's own fault if his newspaper was attacked.

They hated mobs, but most of them hated abolitionists even more. If he would stop attacking slavery, the clouds would stop attacking him. It was evident that the lawless element did not intend to let him continue to print his newspaper, and it was almost as clear that the mayor and authorities were not going to protect him. Three times now his press had been destroyed.

This son of the Puritans was not to be driven from his purpose by threats or blows, but he was forced to see that it was a great waste of money to have one press after another thrown into the Mississippi River. His friends in the town of Quincy urged him to set up his press there, and he felt much inclined to do so.

He decided to wait, however, until the next meeting of the Presbyterian Synod, when he would learn whether the men of his church sided with him or not. This meeting ended in discussion, breaking up along the old lines of those who were friends and those who were enemies of slavery. Some of the members had already joined anti-slavery societies,

while others, although they were opposed to mob violence, did not approve of the newspaper's attack on slave-holding citizens. In a stirring speech, Lovejoy said that they were to decide whether the press should be free in that part of the United States. He ended with an appeal for justice.

I have no personal fears, he declared, not that I feel able to contest the matter with the whole community. I know perfectly well I am not. I know, sir, that you can tar and feather me, hang me up, or put me into the Mississippi without the least difficulty. But what then?

Where shall I go? I have been made to feel that if I am not safe at Alton, I shall not be safe anywhere. I recently visited St. Charles to bring home my family and was torn from their frantic embrace by a mob. I have been beset night and day at Alton. And now, if I leave here and go elsewhere, violence may overtake me in my retreat, and I have no more claim upon the protection of any other community than I have upon this, and I have concluded, after consultation with my friends

and earnestly seeking counsel of God, to remain at Alton, and here to insist on protection in the exercise of my rights. This speech made a great impression upon its hearers. The words were those of a man who had thought long upon his subject and had made up his mind as to what he should do. He expressed no enmity towards the men who had treated him so ill,

and he did not complain of the members of his own church who were lukewarm in their support. A man who was present said that Lovejoy's speech reminded him of the words of St. Paul when brought before Festus or of Martin Luther speaking at the Council of Worms. Having decided to stay, Lovejoy ordered his fourth printing press. This was due to arrive early in November, and as the time drew near,

there was no little excitement and anxiety among the friends of peace in the town. Whenever the puff of a steamboat was heard, men hurried to the banks of the Mississippi. Some meant to defend the press from attack, others meant to hurl it into the river, as they had already done with its predecessors. The press had an uneventful journey.

The first plan was to land it at the place called Chippewa, about five miles down the river, and then carry it secretly into Alton. But the roads grew bad and the plan was abandoned. The press reached St. Louis on Sunday night, November 5th, and it was arranged that the steamer should land it at Alton about three o'clock Tuesday morning.

As soon as this was known, Lovejoy and his friend Gilman went to the mayor and told him of the threat that had been made to destroy the press, asking him to appoint special constables to protect it. The town council voted that Lovejoy and his friends be requested not to persist in setting up an abolition press in Alton, but the mayor refused to sign this request. Monday night, 40 or 50 citizens, intent on seeing that the press was protected, gathered at the warehouse of Godfrey Gilman and Company, where the press was to be stored. Some 30 of them formed a volunteer company with one of the constables in command.

They were armed with rifles and muskets loaded with buckshot or small balls. The editor of The Observer was not there. Only a night or two before his house had been attacked, and his sister had narrowly escaped serious injury. So he arranged with a brother who was staying with him

to take turns standing guard at his house and at the office. At three o'clock, the steamboat arrived at the dock. Lovejoy's enemies had stationed sentinels along the river, and as the boat passed, they gave the alarm by blowing horns, so that when the dock was reached, a large crowd had gathered.

Someone called the mayor and he came down to the warehouse. He begged the volunteer company to keep quiet and said he himself would see to the safe storing of the press. No serious trouble followed. The crowd watched the stevedores carry the press to the warehouse

but did not attack it except to throw a few stones. It was stood in the garret of the stone warehouse safe from the enemy. On Tuesday, everyone knew that the abolition press had arrived. And Tuesday night, the same volunteers went down to the warehouse again. Everything was quiet, and by nine o'clock, all but about a dozen left the place.

Lovejoy stayed by the pressed, it being his brother's turn to guard his house. The warehouse stood high above the river, apart from other buildings, with considerable open space on the sides to the river and to the north. About ten o'clock that night, loafers and stragglers began to come from saloons and restaurants and gather in the streets that led to the warehouse.

Some 30, armed with muskets, pistols, and stones, marched to the door and demanded admittance. Mr. Gilman, one of the owners of the warehouse, standing at the garret door, asked them what they wanted. The leader answered,

The press. Mr. Gilman said that he would not give up the press. We have no ill feeling toward any of you, he added, and should regret to harm you, but we are authorized by the mayor to defend our property and shall do so with our lives.

The mob leader answered that they meant to have the press at any cost and leveled a pistol at Mr. Gilman, who drew back from the door. The crowd began to throw stones and broke a number of windows. Then they fired through the windows. The men inside returned the shots. One or two of the mob were wounded, and this checked them for a time. Soon, however, others came with ladders and materials for setting fire to the roof of the building.

They kept on the side of the warehouse where there were no windows and where they could not be driven away by the defenders. It was a moonlight night, and the small company inside the building did not dare go out into the open space in front. At this point, the mayor appeared and carried a flag of truce through the mob to Lovejoy's friends,

asking that the press be given up and the men in the warehouse depart peacefully without other property being destroyed. He told them that unless they surrendered, the mob would set fire to the warehouse. They answered that they had gathered to defend their property and intended to do it. He admitted that they had a perfect right to do this

and went back to report the result of his mission to the leaders. Outside, a shout went up, Fire the building! Drive out the abolitionists! Burn them out! A great crowd had gathered, but there were no officers of law ready to defend the press. Ladders were placed against the building and the roof was set on fire.

Five men volunteered to go out and try to prevent the firing. They left the building by the riverside, fired at the men on the ladder and drove them away. The crowd drew back while the five returned to the store. The mob did not venture to put their ladder up again,

and presently Lovejoy and two or three others opened the door and looked out. There appeared to be no one on this side, and Lovejoy stepped forward to reconnoiter. Some of his enemies, however, were hidden behind a pile of lumber, and one of them fired a double-barreled gun. The editor was hit by five balls. He turned around, ran up a flight of stairs in the warehouse, and into the counting room. There he fell,

dying a few minutes later. With their leader killed, some of the company wanted to give up the battle, while others insisted on fighting it out. They finally resolved to yield. The clergyman went into one of the upper windows and called out that Elijah Lovejoy had been killed and that they would give up the press if they might be allowed to go unmolested. The crowd answered that they would shoot them all where they were. One of the defenders determined to go out at any risk and

make terms. As soon as he opened the door, he was fired upon and wounded. The roof was now blazing, and one of their friends reached the door and begged them to escape by the rear. All but two or three laid down their arms, running out at the southern door and fled down the bank of the river. The mob fired at them, but only one was wounded. The crowd rushed into the warehouse, threw the press out the window, breaking it into pieces, and scattered the pieces in the Mississippi.

At two o'clock, they had disappeared, having accomplished their evil purpose of preventing a free press in Alton. Elijah Lovejoy was only 35 years old when he met his martyr's death. His life in Missouri and Illinois had been one constant fight against slavery and for liberty of speech. His Puritan ancestry made it impossible for him to give up the battle. the story of his heroic struggle and death aroused lovers of liberty all over the country,

and newspapers everywhere denounced the acts of the mob at Alton. Such acts meant that men could not speak their minds on public questions, and a free press had been one of the dearest rights of American citizens. Men in the North at that time had by no means agreed that slavery must be abolished, but they did all believe in freedom of the press. For that cause, Lovejoy had been a martyr. More than two decades were to pass before the question of slavery was to be settled forever,

and in the years between 1837 and 1860, many men of the same stock and stripe as Elijah Lovejoy were to give up their lives in heroic defense of their belief in freedom. He was one of the first of a long line of heroes. His voice sounded a call that was to echo through the border states for years to come, inspiring others to take up his cause. A freedom-loving country should place among its noblest sons this dauntless editor and preacher. End of section 7.