American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor and abolitionist
1802 CE
to 1837 CE
Elijah Parish Lovejoy (November 9, 1802 – November 7, 1837) is an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor and abolitionist.
He is murdered by pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, during their attack on his warehouse to destroy his press and abolitionist materials.
Lovejoy's father is a Congregational minister and his mother a devout Christian.
He attends Waterville College (now Colby College) in his home state of Maine.
He travels west and in 1827 settles in St. Louis, Missouri.
He works as an editor of an anti-Jacksonian newspaper, the St. Louis Observer and runs a school.
Five years later, he studies at the Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey and becomes an ordained Presbyterian preacher.
Returning to St. Louis, he sets up a church and resumes work as editor of the Observer.
His editorials criticize slavery and other church denominations.
In May 1836, after anti-abolitionist opponents in St. Louis destroy his printing press for the third time, Lovejoy leaves the city and moves across the river to Alton in the free state of Illinois.
In 1837, he starts the Alton Observer, also an abolitionist paper.
On November 7, 1837, a pro-slavery mob attacks the warehouse where Lovejoy has his fourth printing press.
Lovejoy and his supporters exchange gunfire with the mob, which fatally shoots him.
He dies on the spot and is soon hailed as a martyr by abolitionists across the country.
After his death, his brother Owen Lovejoy enters politics and becomes the leader of the Illinois abolitionists.
