Elijah Lovejoy

“Slavery must cease to exist. There can be no doubt on this subject”

Elijah Lovejoy

Elijah Parish Lovejoy, born the son of Reverend Daniel and Elizabeth (Pattee) Lovejoy, first came to St. Louis in 1827. He had graduated from what was then Waterville College and began publishing the newspaper the St. Louis Times in 1830. In 1832, he would return east and attend Princeton Theological Seminary, after hearing the Presbyterian minister Rev. David Nelson. He sold his earlier newspaper, and became publisher of the St. Louis Observer, a religious paper published weekly, where he often wrote about his views on slavery and the abolition of the practice. When he was asked to stop publishing on the subject of slavery, he refused citing his “freedom of the press”. In hopes of more personal safety, his friends convinced him to move his press to Alton, Illinois, where he began the…