County of monument: Madison County
Location of monument: 5th St. & Vine St., City Cemetery, Alton
Artist: Robert Porter Bringhurst, 1855-1925, sculptor &
Richard W. Bock, 1865-1949, sculptor
Founder: American Bronze Company
Architect: Louis Christian Mullgardt, Louis Christian, 1866-1942
Contractors: Culver Stone Company, R. C. Bowers Granite Company, & McMillan & Stephens
Monument Bronze plaques text:
(front base ~ South):
ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY
EDITOR ALTON OBSERVER
Albion, ME Alton, ILL
Nov. 8, 1802 Nov. 7, 1837
A MARTYR TO LIBERTY
"I have sworn eternal opposition to slavery, and by the blessing of God, I will never go back."
(Rear Base ~ North):
CHAMPION OF FREE SPEECH
(Cut of Lovejoy Press)
"But, gentlemen, as long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, to publish whatever I please on any subject-being amenable to the laws of my country for the same."
(Proper Left Base ~ West):
SLAVE VICTORIES!
This monument commemorates the valor, devotion, and sacrifices of the noble Defenders of the Press, who, in this city, on November 7, 1837, made the first armed resistance to the aggressions of the slave power in America.
(Proper Right Base ~ East):
MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL
MODERATOR OF
ALTON PRESBYTERY
"If the laws of my country fail to protect me I appeal to God, and with him I cheerfully rest my cause. I can die at my post but I cannot desert it."
(Small Plaque on each small column):
Erected
by the State of Illinois
and citizens of Alton.
1896-'97
Dedicated
In gratitude of God,
and in the love of
Liberty
Nov. 8, 1897
Text of granite stones at the base of the main column:
ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY (Nov. 9, 1802 - Nov. 7, 1837)
was a newspaper editor, social reformer, and Presbyterian Minister whose death at the hands of an angry mob at Alton, Illinois, made him an enduring symbol of the fight for human liberty and freedom of the press.
Born in Albion, Maine, Lovejoy graduated from Waterville (now Colby) College in 1826. He moved the following year to St. Louis, where he taught school and began his career as a journalist. In 1832, Lovejoy decided to become a minister and returned to the East to study at Princeton Theological Seminary.
In November, 1833, Lovejoy began editing a religious newspaper, the ST. LOUIS OBSERVER. Lovejoy's antislavery views so enraged proslavery Missourians that he fled with his newspaper to Illinois. Three presses were thrown into the Mississippi River. Yet Lovejoy persisted in publishing the Alton Observer. He was shot dead while defending the warehouse in which a fourth press had been stored. His body, buried on his thirty-fifth birthday in an unmarked grave at Alton Cemetery, was later exhumed and reinterred at its present location on a hillside north of the Lovejoy Monument.
Two others were wounded. Allies were: William Harned - Edward Breath - George H. Whitney - Enoch Long - H.D. Davis - Thaddeus B. Hurlbut - Amos B. Roff - James Morse, Jr. - George H. Walworth - Reuben Gerry - George T. Brown - D.F. Randall - W.G. Atwood - Royal Weller - John S. Noble - J.C. Woods - Winthrop S. Gilman - Samuel J. Thompson - D. Burt Loomis - Henry Tanner - Traditions add Owen Lovejoy , Elijah's brother, Rueben D. Farley, J. Norman Brown, John R. Anderson, A free black man, a Baptist minister.
Proper Description: "Monument has 3 shafts, center shaft tallest with bronze winged figure blowing trumpet. Center shaft has reliefs on four sides at bottom, including bust relief of Lovejoy. Two smaller shafts flanking center shaft are surmounted with bronze eagles. Granite markers are placed at the bottom of the steps, inscribed with text related to Lovejoy's life." ~ Smithsonian American Art Museum
Remarks: "The Lovejoy State Memorial honors abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah P. Lovejoy, who was murdered by a mob while defending his printing press on November 7, 1837. The monument was erected in 1897 and became state property in 1923." ~ Smithsonian American Art Museum