By CYNTHIA M. ELLIS
November 9, 2008 - 4:22PM
ALTON - The city honored one of freedom's martyrs on Sunday.
Mayor Donald Sandidge proclaimed the day Elijah P. Lovejoy Day in the city - 206 years to the day of the newspaper publisher's birth.
"Elijah P. Lovejoy came to Alton to escape the pro-slavery of Missouri," Sandidge said. "He experienced similar difficulties in Alton; he gave his life Nov. 7, 1837, in defense of our freedoms."
About 30 people attended the event and wreath-laying ceremony beneath the historic Lovejoy Monument at Alton Cemetery.
Lovejoy is buried a distance behind the towering, 93-foot-tall center granite column monument, which has a 17-foot-tall winged statue called "Victory" on top.
It is flanked by two 30-foot-tall "sentry" columns, each topped with an eagle statue.
The monument was dedicated Nov. 8, 1897.
Elijah P. Lovejoy Memorial board members hold the ceremony every Nov. 9, the anniversaries of Lovejoy's birthday and burial. It was one of several events held during Lovejoy Week in Alton.
The Allen Bevenue American Legion Post 354 presented colors at the beginning of the ceremony. The Rev. Charles K. Burton Jr. of Unity Fellowship in Godfrey gave the invocation and benediction and Alton High School seniors Adrianna Jones and Josh Kuehn gave vocal presentations.
A red, white and blue carnation wreath was placed at the foot of the monument's tallest column by Lovejoy Memorial Board president Rance Thomas and trustee Ed Gray.
Alton High School social studies teacher Carla Hilgert gave the keynote speech.
"Elijah P. Lovejoy was the first white man to die in the fight against freedom," Hilgert said. "He is a moral beacon."
Hilgert said Lovejoy furthered the anti-slavery movement more than any other man and should be remembered for his sacrifices.
Lovejoy, a native of Albion, Maine, joined the U.S. Army at the age of 19 and met Abraham Lincoln while in the service. He graduated from Waterville College, now Colby College, in Waterville, Maine. He attended Princeton Theological Seminary and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1834.
He worked at a religious newspaper, the St. Louis Observer, and opened a school but left St. Louis during controversy over states' rights, slavery and freedom of speech and of the press. He then became editor of the abolitionist Alton Observer.
During Lovejoy's time in Alton, pro-slavery mobs threw his printing presses into the Mississippi River three times in response to his abolitionist editorials. One time, in July 1836, was after Lovejoy wrote a critical account of a trial that acquitted leaders of a mob that lynched a black man.
On Nov. 7, 1837, a pro-slavery mob fatally shot him five times outside the former Godfrey and Gilman's warehouse, in which he hid his printing press. Lovejoy and a supporter, Royal Weller, were shot as they tried to keep a boy from climbing a ladder and setting the building on fire.
The crowd threw the printing press out the window, smashing it on the riverbank, then scattered the pieces into the river.
Hilgert said society should continue to teach children about the wrongdoings of others.
"We need to continue to teach them to stand up for what is unjust and unfair," she said.
cynthia_ellis@thetelegraph.com
The Telegraph, founded on Jan. 17, 1836, is a daily newspaper that covers an area spanning five counties in Illinois – Madison, Jersey, Calhoun, Macoupin and Greene.
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