Killing of Elijah Lovejoy at Alton

Background. Elijah Lovejoy faced threats and violent attacks and decided to move across the Mississippi River to Alton, Illinois, a free state, relocating The Observer after two break-ins in May 1836. In 1837 he started the Alton Observer, an abolitionist, Presbyterian paper. After an economic crisis in March 1837, Alton citizens wondered whether his views were contributing to hard times. Alton had become an important town for abolitionists, as Illinois was a free state separated from the slave state of Missouri only by the Mississippi River.

The Attack. On November 6, 1837, a mob, largely composed of Missourians, attacked Lovejoy's warehouse in Alton. The mob aimed to destroy his printing press, which was hidden in a warehouse owned by Gilman and Godfrey. Lovejoy attempted to protect the press, leading to a violent confrontation where the mob stormed the building and threw the press into the Mississippi River.

Aftermath. The mob stormed the warehouse and threw Lovejoy's printing press into the Mississippi River. In January 1838, Murdoch, the district attorney of Alton, prosecuted charges of riot related to both the assailants and the defenders of the warehouse, on Wednesday and Friday of the same week; the attackers allegedly responsible for the destruction of the warehouse and Lovejoy's death were tried beginning January 19, 1838. After his murder by a mob, Lovejoy became a martyr to the abolitionist cause opposing slavery in the United States.