Nov. 7, 1837 A crusading editor is killed defending the freedom of the press – STLtoday.com

A drawing of the mob that gathered outside Winthrop Gilman'swarehouse at the foot of William Street in Alton on Nov. 7, 1837.Inside the warehouse was editor Elijah P. Lovejoy's fourth press,which had been delivered by steamboat earlier in the day. Mobs haddestroyed the other three. When several men tried to set fire tothe roof, some of Lovejoy's supporters stepped out of the warehouseand fired at the mob. In the ensuing quiet, Lovejoy took a lookoutside at the front door and was hit by five shots. He collapsedand died. (Missouri History Museum)

THIS IS NOT REALLY ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY It is probably his brotherOwen, but that is not certain -- there are no known photos ofElijah Lovejoy, who died in 1837, according to the Lovejoy SocietyOriginal photographer's caption: INPUT DEC. 23, 2005-- Elijah P.Lovejoy HANDOUT

Gov. Adlai Stevenson of Illinois helps unveil a plaque honoringElijah P. Lovejoy at Riverside Park in Alton on Nov. 9, 1952. Withhim are (left) Elijah P. Lovejoy IV, then 11 years old, and GirlScout Naomi Wilson. The bronze marker was stolen several yearslater, and a replacement was moved to the foot of William Street,site of the warehouse where Lovejoy was shot to death. It then wasmoved to Lovejoy School, 1043 Tremont Street in Alton.(Post-Dispatch)

A statue of a trumpeting angel stands atop a tall monument toElijah P. Lovejoy near his grave in Alton City Cemetery. Themonument was built in 1897. (Wendi Fitzgerald/Post-Dispatch)

St. Louis County Judge Luke E. Lawless, whose instructions tothe grand jury looking into the lynching of McIntosh virtuallyassured there would be no charges. Lawless told the jurors that ifa mob committed the murder, "it would be impossible to punish, andabsurd to attempt it." The grand jury agreed, writing off the crimeas an unpunishable "act of the populace." Elijah P. Lovejoyattacked Lawless and his comments repeatedly in the Observer.(Missouri History Museum)

The Elijah P. Lovejoy Monument, honoring the publisher andmartyred abolitionist, is one of the most prominent landmarks inAlton. Photo by Martha Conzelman

BY TIM O'NEILSt. Louis Post-Dispatch

ALTON Besieged but defiant, the editor and his friends guarded the new printing press inside a riverfront warehouse. A mob surged toward them. Everybody had weapons.

"Burn 'em out," someone outside shouted. "Shoot every damned abolitionist as he leaves."

A drawing of Elijah P. Lovejoy, abolitionist editor in St. Louis who moved to Alton in 1836 after pro-slavery mobs ransacked his newspaper office. He was murdered outside a riverfront warehouse in Alton on Nov. 7, 1837, while trying to defend a fourth press that had been delivered by steamboat earlier in the day. He became a martyr for the nation's small but growing abolitionist cause. (Elijah P. Lovejoy Society)

When men with torches climbed onto the roof, defenders of the press opened fire, killing one rioter and forcing others to retreat. In the eerie quiet, editor Elijah P. Lovejoy stepped outside for a look.

Five shots riddled him. "Oh God, I am shot," he said as he fell.

Lovejoy, known for righteous and unforgiving prose against slavery, was almost 35 when he was killed Nov. 7, 1837. The mob tossed his press into the Mississippi River.

It was the fourth press that Lovejoy had lost to people who hated his words. He soon became a martyr to the nation's small but rising wave of abolitionism. In Illinois, a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln decried the mob violence.

Lovejoy, a native of Maine, drew public wrath in St. Louis in 1833 as editor of a Presbyterian newspaper. His object of vituperation was Catholicism. He soon expanded his list of targets to include "the Irish and pro-slavery Christians." The city's slaveholding leadership wasn't amused.

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The final break came on April 28, 1836, when a mob dragged a free black man from the St. Louis jail and burned him to death on a tree near 10th and Market streets. The victim was Francis L. McIntosh, a steamboat cook who had stabbed a sheriff's deputy to death after being arrested in a scuffle on the levee.

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Nov. 7, 1837 A crusading editor is killed defending the freedom of the press - STLtoday.com