The other letter gives an account of the Alton riot and the killing of
Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy. This is one of the few contemporary accounts we
have of that shocking event. Although he was not an eye-witness of the
riot, the facts as stated are substantially correct, and the comments
give us a view of the opinions of the writer at the age of twenty-four,
touching a subject in which he was destined to play an important part.
The letter is subjoined:
BELLEVILLE, SUNDAY, Nov. 12, 1837.
DEAR FATHER: Since my last to you there has been a mob to put
down Abolitionism, in Alton, thirty-five miles northwest of
this place, in which two persons were killed and six or seven
badly wounded. The immediate cause of the riot was the attempt
by a Mr. Lovejoy to establish at Alton a religious newspaper in
which the principles of slavery were sometimes discussed. Mr.
Lovejoy was a Presbyterian minister and formerly edited a
newspaper in St. Louis, but having published articles in his
paper in relation to slavery which were offensive to the people
of St. Louis, a mob collected, broke open his office, destroyed
his press and type and scattered it through the streets.
Immediately after this transaction, which was about a year
since, Mr. Lovejoy left St. Louis, and removed to Alton, where
he attempted to re-establish his press, but he had not been
there long before a mob assembled there also, broke into his
office and destroyed his press. In a short time Mr. Lovejoy
ordered another press which, soon after its arrival in Alton,
was taken from the warehouse (where it was deposited), by a
mob, and in like manner destroyed. Again he ordered still
another press, which arrived in Alton on the night of the 7th
inst., and was safely deposited in a large stone warehouse four
or five storeys high.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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