Recalling Elijah Lovejoy, on his birthday

Unless you have ties to Maine, Missouri or Illinois, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Elijah Parish Lovejoy. I was unfamiliar with him before I moved to Maine. On this, his reputed birthday, here’s a quick look at why he should be better-known than he is. 

Lovejoy was born in Albion, Maine, on Nov. 9, 1802. (Some accounts  say Nov. 8.) After graduating from Waterville College (now Colby College) in Maine, he traveled to St. Louis to teach and write for local newspapers. Lovejoy became a newspaper editor and a minister, and in 1833, he began publishing a religious newspaper, the St. Louis Observer.

An abolitionist in a slave state, Lovejoy wrote anti-slavery editorials, and his office was broken into several times, When he did not let up, his home was burglarized and his press destroyed, according to a biography on the Colby College web site.

Lovejoy bought a second press and moved his paper to Alton, Illinois, where he began publishing the abolitionist Alton Observer. In 1837, his press was destroyed, so he bought a third one. That one was destroyed as well, so  he bought a fourth press. 

On Nov. 7, 1837, a mob descended on the warehouse containing Lovejoy’s press, set fire to the roof and shot Lovejoy five times, killing him. His death is not widely recalled today, but it galvanized the country at the time. John Quincy Adams said Lovejoy’s murder had created "a shock as of an earthquake throughout this continent, which will be felt in the most distant regions of the earth."

Lovejoy has gone down in history as America’s first martyr to freedom of the press. In 1952, Colby College created the Lovejoy Award, to preserve Lovejoy’s memory and honor what the college calls his legacy of journalistic “fearlessness and freedom.”