earlier, this troop of troublemakers attacked people barricaded in a warehouse belonging to elijah p. lovejoy. the crowd had learned earlier that day that lovejoy had received a new printing press that would make it possible, possible for him to resume the publication of his anti-slavery newspaper "the observer." lovejoy had moved across the river to illinois from st. louis in 1836, believing that he would be safer expressing his anti-slavery views in the free state of illinois, rather than the slave state of missouri, but alton was a pro-slavery community in a free state. its character was much different than the yankees owen lovejoy had grown up with and his brother elijah p. lovejoy had grown up with, in maine. lovejoy soon came to recognize, however, that there was real danger and he was courting very real problems for himself even in alton. he had written a letter earlier to his mother saying, "it is harder to fight valiantly for the truth when i risk not only my own comfort, ease and reputation, and even life, but that of a beloved one as well. i have a family that is dependent upon me,

character was much different than the yankees owen lovejoy had grown up with and his brother elijah p. lovejoy had grown up with, in maine. lovejoy soon came to recognize, however, that there was real danger and he was courting very real problems for himself even in alton. he had written a letter earlier to his mother saying, "it is harder to fight valiantly for the truth when i risk not only my own comfort, ease and reputation, and even life, but that of a beloved one as well. i have a family that is dependent upon me, and this is the bitterest ingredient to the cup of sorrow i am called to drink." lovejoy's abolitionist stance so outraged the majority of alton citizens that mobs had on three previous occasions stormed his newspaper office and destroyed his presses. on this moonlit night, however, lovejoy and his loyal group of friends, including his brother, owen, were determined not to let that happen again. when the mob made its first attack on the building that one man in the crowd was shot to death. the rioters retreated for a while and consumed more liquor. they regrouped and charged th