Lovejoy, Elijah

Lovejoy, Elijah (Parish) (1802–37) abolitionist; born in Albion, Maine. Ordained a Presbyterian minister (1833), he went to St. Louis, Mo., to preach and edit the Presbyterian St. Louis Observer, enlisting the paper in the fight against slavery, intemperance, and "popery." Harassed for promoting even gradual abolitionism, in 1836 he moved to Alton, Ill., to relocate his paper as the Alton Observer. Although some citizens supported his views on slavery, others were adamantly opposed and they threw three successive printing presses into the local river. The final straw came when he called for establishing an auxiliary of the American Anti-Slavery Society (1837). He was shot during a mob attack as he was defending the arrival of yet another printing press.