Elijah Parish Lovejoy was born on November 9, 1802 in Albion, Maine. He attended Waterville College, where he graduated at the top of his class.
In 1927, Elijah moved to Saint Louis, Missouri. During his time there, he became the editor of the St. Louis Times and the headmaster of a local private school. A fellow abolitionist friend convinced Elijah to
attend seminary school,
so in 1832 he left St. Louis to study at the Princeton Theological School. Elijah returned to St. Louis in 1833 and became the editor of the St. Louis Observer. Two years later, he married his wife, Celia Ann French.
Many people in St. Louis did not like Elijah’s newspaper. In it, he wrote about how slavery in the United States was wrong and how slaves should be freed. Eventually, Elijah moved his family and newspaper across the Mississippi River to Alton, Illinois. Once there, he became the editor of an important abolitionist paper, the Alton Observer.
Elijah used printing presses like this one to print his newspapers. Unfortunately, his presses were seized by pro-slavery groups three different times and thrown into the river! But even this did not stop Elijah from writing about freedom.
On December 7, 1837, pro-slavery advocates gathered outside of a warehouse where Elijah’s newest printing press had been
hidden. According to the Alton Observer, shots were fired by the pro-slavery advocates. Elijah P. Lovejoy was hit five times, and died on the spot. His beautiful new printing press was carried to a window and thrown out onto the riverbank below.
After Elijah’s death, his brother, Owen, became the leader of the Illinois abolitionists. Elijah’s murder was a sign of the growing trouble in the United
States leading up to the Civil War. For this reason, Elijah P. Lovejoy is considered by some to be the “first casualty of the Civil War.”