Lovejoy Assassination Site

Lovejoy Assassination Site. Nov. 7, 1837. , The warehouse of Godfrey, Gilman and Co. was situated at the foot of William Street near where the flour mill is located today. Broadway was a one lane street at that time called Short Street. The building was stone, three stories on the street side and four stories on the river side, which was a receiving point for goods brought to Alton by steamboats. , 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."