LOVEJOY, Elijah Parish, American abolitionist: h. Albion, Me., 9 Nov. 1802; d. Alton, Ill., 7 Nov. 1837. He was graduated at Waterville College in 1826, and at the Prince ton Theological Seminary in 1833, and was or dained to the ministry, but soon after assumed the editorship of the Saint Louis Observer, a Presbyterian paper of considerable influence. His utterances on the slavery question did not begin to appear in the Observer until he had been for some time in charge of its columns, and his first references to that subject were marked by moderation. But, stirred by the lynching of a negro murderer by burning, he published an editorial which incensed the pro slavery part of the community. Hostility was so violent that he removed the paper to Alton, Ill., where a mob threw his press into the river. He was presented with another by Alton friends, and 8 Sept. 1836 published the first issue of the Alton Observer. He soon took a holder anti-slavery stand, and began to call for the organization of a State abolition society. Again, in August 1837, he was mobbed, his office wrecked and the press destroyed, and when a new press was bought the ruin was again repeated. The fourth press was set up
in a warehouse under an armed guard; but during the night of 7 Nov. 1837 a score or two of men attacked the building, disregarded Lovejoy's warning, were fired upon and one of the assailants was killed. An attempt was then made to set the warehouse on fire, and when Lovejoy was preparing to shoot the in cendiary, he himself received a mortal gunshot wound. The mob then took possession of the place, and once more Lovejoy's press was de stroyed. The whole country was excited by these events; public feeling was manifested in various ways; but the most significant effect of the tragedy was a more distinct arraying of forces for the "irrepressible conflict* which had already begun. Consult J. C. and Owen Love joy's 'Memoir' (New York 1838); May,