Part 8

There were still a small number of "freedom-loving" people in Alton, however, and these stood back of Elijah Lovejoy. Although two printing-presses had now been destroyed, these men called a meeting and decided that the _Observer_ must continue to be printed. Money was promised, and the editor prepared to set up his press for the third time. He issued a short note to the public, in which he said: "I now appeal to you, and all the friends of law and order, to come to the rescue. If you will sustain me, by the help of God, the press shall be again established at this place, and shall be sustained, come what will. Let the experiment be fairly tried, whether the liberty of speech and of the press is to be enjoyed in Illinois or not." The money was raised, and the dauntless spokesman for freedom sent to Cincinnati for supplies for his new office.

That autumn enemies scattered pamphlets accusing Lovejoy and other Abolitionists of various crimes against the country. Although few people believed them, the circulars increased the hostile feelings, and disturbed many of the editor's friends. Some of the latter began to doubt whether the _Observer_ ought to continue its stirring articles. Some thought it should be only a religious paper. But Lovejoy answered that he felt it was his duty to speak out in protest against the great evil of slavery. He finally offered to resign, if the supporters of the paper thought it best for him to do so. They could not come to any decision, and so let him continue his course.

The third printing-press arrived at Alton on September 21st, while Lovejoy was away attending a church meeting. The press was landed from the steamboat a little after sunset, and was protected by a number of friends of the _Observer_. It was carted to a large warehouse to be stored. As it passed through the street some men cried, "There goes the Abolition press; stop it, stop it!" but no one tried to injure it. The mayor of Alton declared that the press should be protected, and placed a constable at the door of the warehouse, with orders to remain till a certain hour. As soon as this man left, ten or twelve others, with handkerchiefs tied over their faces as disguise, broke into the warehouse, rolled the press across the street to the river, broke it into pieces, and threw it into the Mississippi. The mayor arrived and protested, but the men paid no attention to him.

Lovejoy's business had called him to the town of St. Charles, near St. Louis, and he preached there while his third press was being attacked. After his sermon in the evening he was sitting chatting with a clergyman and another friend when a young man came in, and slipped a note into his hand. The note read:

"MR. LOVEJOY:

"Be watchful as you come from church to-night.

A FRIEND."

Lovejoy showed the note to the two other men, and the clergyman invited him to stay at his house. The editor declined, however, and walked to his mother-in-law's residence with his two friends. No one stopped them, and when they came to the house Lovejoy and the clergyman went in, and sat down to chat in a room on the second floor. About ten o'clock they heard a knock on the door at the foot of the stairs. Mrs. Lovejoy's mother went to the door, and asked what was wanted. Voices answered, "We want to see Mr. Lovejoy; is he in?" The editor called down, "Yes, I am here." As soon as the door was opened, two men rushed up-stairs, and into the sitting-room. They ordered Lovejoy to go down-stairs, and when he resisted, struck him with their fists. Mrs. Lovejoy heard the noise, and came running from her room. A crowd now filled the hall, and she had to fight her way through them. Several men tried to drag the editor out of the house, but his wife clung to him, and aided by her mother and sister finally persuaded the assailants to leave.

Exhausted by the struggle, Mrs. Lovejoy fainted. While her husband was trying to help her, the mob came back, and, paying no attention to the sick woman, insisted that they were going to ride Lovejoy out of town. By this time a few respectable citizens had heard the noise, and came to his aid. A second time the rabble was driven away; but they stayed in the yard, and made the night hideous with their threats to the Abolitionist. Presently some of the men went up to Lovejoy's room the third time, and one of them gave him a note, which demanded that he leave St. Charles by ten o'clock the next morning. Lovejoy's friends begged him to send out an answer promising that he would leave. Although he at first declined to do this, he finally yielded to their urging. He wrote, "I have already taken my passage in the stage, to leave to-morrow morning, at least by nine o'clock." This note was carried out to the crowd on the lawn, and read to them. His friends thought the mob would scatter after that, and they did for a time; but after listening to violent speeches returned again. The noise was now so threatening that Lovejoy's friends begged him to fly from the house. His wife added her pleadings to theirs, and at last he stole out unnoticed by a door at the rear. He hated to leave his wife in such a dangerous situation, however, and so, after waiting a short time, he went back. His friends reproached him for returning, and their reproaches were justified, for, like hounds scenting the fox, the mob menaced the house more noisily than ever. Lovejoy saw that he must leave again in order to protect his wife and friends. This he succeeded in doing, and walked about a mile to the residence of a Major Sibley. This friend lent him a horse, and he rode out of town to the house of another friend four miles away. Next day Mrs. Lovejoy joined him, and they went on together to Alton.

One of the very first people they met in Alton was a man from St Charles who had been among those who had broken into their house the night before. Mrs. Lovejoy was alarmed at seeing him in Illinois, because the mob in St. Charles had declared that they were going to drive Lovejoy out of that part of the country. In order to quiet her fears her husband asked some friends to come to his house, and ten men, well armed, spent the next night guarding it, while he himself kept a loaded musket at his side. The storm-clouds were gathering about his devoted head.

Even the leading citizens of this Illinois town now felt that it was Lovejoy's own fault if his newspaper was attacked. They hated mobs, but most of them hated Abolitionists even more. If he would stop attacking slavery, the crowds would stop attacking him. It was evident that the lawless element did not intend to let him continue to print his newspaper, and it was almost as clear that the mayor and authorities were not going to protect him. Three times now his press had been destroyed.

This son of the Puritans was not to be driven from his purpose by threats or blows, but he was forced to see that it was a great waste of money to have one press after another thrown into the Mississippi River. His friends in the town of Quincy urged him to set up his press there, and he felt much inclined to do so. He decided to wait, however, until the next meeting of the Presbyterian Synod, when he would learn whether the men of his church sided with him or not. This meeting ended in discussion, breaking up along the old lines of those who were friends and those who were enemies of slavery. Some of the members had already joined Anti-Slavery Societies, while others, although they were opposed to mob-violence, did not approve of the newspaper's attack on slaveholding citizens. In a stirring speech Lovejoy said that they were to decide whether the press should be free in that part of the United States. He ended with an appeal for justice. "I have no personal fears," he declared. "Not that I feel able to contest the matter with the whole community. I know perfectly well I am not. I know, sir, that you can tar and feather me, hang me up, or put me into the Mississippi, without the least difficulty. But what then? Where shall I go? I have been made to feel that if I am not safe at Alton, I shall not be safe anywhere. I recently visited St. Charles to bring home my family, and was torn from their frantic embrace by a mob. I have been beset night and day at Alton. And now if I leave here and go elsewhere, violence may overtake me in my retreat, and I have no more claim upon the protection of any other community than I have upon this; and I have concluded, after consultation with my friends, and earnestly seeking counsel of God, to remain at Alton, and here to insist on protection in the exercise of my rights."

This speech made a great impression upon its hearers. The words were those of a man who had thought long upon his subject, and had made up his mind as to what he should do. He expressed no enmity toward the men who had treated him so ill, and he did not complain of the members of his own church who were lukewarm in their support. A man who was present said that Lovejoy's speech reminded him of the words of St. Paul when brought before Festus, or of Martin Luther speaking to the council at Worms.

Having decided to stay, Lovejoy ordered his fourth printing-press. This was due to arrive early in November, and as the time drew near there was no little excitement and anxiety among the friends of peace in the town. Whenever the puff of a steamboat was heard men hurried to the banks of the Mississippi. Some meant to defend the press from attack; others meant to hurl it into the river as they had already done with its predecessors. The press had an eventful journey. The first plan was to land it at a place called Chippewa, about five miles down the river, and then carry it secretly into Alton. But the roads grew bad, and this plan was abandoned. The press reached St. Louis on Sunday night, November 5th, and it was arranged that the steamer should land it at Alton about three o'clock Tuesday morning. As soon as this was known, Lovejoy and his friend Gilman went to the mayor and told him of the threat that had been made to destroy the press, asking him to appoint special constables to protect it. The town council voted that Lovejoy and his friends be requested not to persist in setting up an Abolition press in Alton, but the mayor refused to sign this request.

Monday night forty or fifty citizens, intent on seeing that the press was protected, gathered at the warehouse of Godfrey, Gilman and Company where the press was to be stored. Some thirty of them formed a volunteer company, with one of the city constables in command. They were armed with rifles and muskets loaded with buckshot or small balls. The editor of the _Observer_ was not there. Only a night or two before his house had been attacked, and his sister had narrowly escaped serious injury. So he arranged with a brother, who was staying with him, to take turns standing guard at his house and at the office.

At three o'clock the steamboat arrived at the dock. Lovejoy's enemies had stationed sentinels along the river, and as the boat passed they gave the alarm by blowing horns, so that when the dock was reached a large crowd had gathered. Some one called the mayor, and he came down to the warehouse. He begged the volunteer company to keep quiet, and said he himself would see to the safe storing of the press. No serious trouble followed. The crowd watched the stevedores carry the press to the warehouse, but did not attack it, except to throw a few stones. It was stood in the garret of the stone warehouse, safe from the enemy.

On Tuesday every one knew that the "Abolition press" had arrived, and Tuesday night the same volunteers went down to the warehouse again. Everything was quiet, and by nine o'clock all but about a dozen left the place. Lovejoy stayed by the press, it being his brother's turn to guard his house. The warehouse stood high above the river, apart from other buildings, with considerable open space on the sides to the river and to the north.

About ten o'clock that night loafers and stragglers began to come from saloons and restaurants, and gather in the streets that led to the warehouse. Some thirty, armed with muskets, pistols, and stones, marched to the door, and demanded admittance. Mr. Gilman, one of the owners of the warehouse, standing at the garret door, asked what they wanted. The leader answered, "The press." Mr. Gilman said that he would not give up the press. "We have no ill feelings toward any of you," he added, "and should regret to harm you; but we are authorized by the mayor to defend our property, and shall do so with our lives." The mob leader answered that they meant to have the press at any cost, and leveled a pistol at Mr. Gilman, who drew back from the door. The crowd began to throw stones, and broke a number of windows. Then they fired through the windows. The men inside returned the shots. One or two of the mob were wounded; and this checked them for a time. Soon, however, others came with ladders, and materials for setting fire to the roof of the building. They kept on the side of the warehouse where there were no windows, and where they could not be driven away by the defenders. It was a moonlight night, and the small company inside the building did not dare go out into the open space in front. At this point the mayor appeared and carried a flag of truce through the mob to Lovejoy's friends, asking that the press be given up, and the men in the warehouse depart peacefully without other property being destroyed. He told them that unless they surrendered the mob would set fire to the warehouse. They answered that they had gathered to defend their property, and intended to do it. He admitted that they had a perfect right to do this, and went back to report the result of his mission to the leaders. Outside a shout went up, "Fire the building, drive out the Abolitionists, burn them out!" A great crowd had gathered, but there were no officers of the law ready to defend the press.

Ladders were placed against the building, and the roof was set on fire. Five men volunteered to go out and try to prevent the firing. They left the building by the riverside, fired at the men on the ladder, and drove them away. The crowd drew back, while the five returned to the store. The mob did not venture to put up their ladder again, and presently Lovejoy and two or three others opened a door and looked out. There appeared to be no one on this side, and Lovejoy stepped forward to reconnoiter. Some of his enemies, however, were hidden behind a pile of lumber, and one of them fired a double-barreled gun. The editor was hit by five balls. He turned around, ran up a flight of stairs in the warehouse, and into the counting-room. There he fell, dying a few minutes later.

With their leader killed some of the company wanted to give up the battle, while others insisted on fighting it out. They finally resolved to yield. A clergyman went to one of the upper windows and called out that Elijah Lovejoy had been killed and that they would give up the press if they might be allowed to go unmolested. The crowd answered that they would shoot them all where they were. One of the defenders determined to go out at any risk and make terms. As soon as he opened the door, he was fired upon and wounded. The roof was now blazing, and one of their friends reached a door and begged them to escape by the rear. All but two or three laid down their arms, running out at the southern door, and fled down the bank of the river. The mob fired at them, but only one was wounded. The crowd rushed into the warehouse, threw the press out the window, breaking it into pieces, and scattered the pieces in the Mississippi. At two o'clock they had disappeared, having accomplished their evil purpose of preventing a "free press" in Alton.

Elijah Lovejoy was only thirty-five years old when he met his martyr's death. His life in Missouri and Illinois had been one constant fight against slavery, and for liberty of speech. His Puritan ancestry made it impossible for him to give up the battle he knew to be right. The story of his heroic struggle and death aroused lovers of liberty all over the country, and newspapers everywhere denounced the acts of the mob at Alton. Such acts meant that men could not speak their minds on public questions, and a "free press" had been one of the dearest rights of American citizens. Men in the North at that time had by no means agreed that slavery must be abolished, but they did all believe in the freedom of the press. For that cause Lovejoy had been a martyr.

More than two decades were to pass before the question of slavery was to be settled forever, and in the years between 1837 and 1860 many men of the same stock and stripe as Elijah Lovejoy were to give up their lives in heroic defense of their belief in freedom. He was one of the first of a long line of heroes. His voice sounded a call that was to echo through the border states for years to come, inspiring others to take up his cause. A freedom-loving country should place among its noblest sons this dauntless editor and preacher.

VI

HOW MARCUS WHITMAN SAVED OREGON

The Hudson's Bay Company, whose business was to buy skins and furs from the American Indians, had located a trading-post at Fort Walla Walla, in the country of the Cayuse and Nez Percés Indians. This was in what was known as Oregon Territory in 1842, although it is now near the southeast corner of the state of Washington. Here was a very primitive settlement, the frame houses of a few white men and the tents of Indians. Very little effort had been made to grow grain or fruit or to raise sheep or cattle, since the Hudson's Bay Company wanted the Indians to be continually on the hunt for furs, and discouraged them from turning into farmers. Besides the traders and the Indians there was a small missionary camp near at hand, located on a beautiful peninsula made by two branches of the Walla Walla River. This place was called by the Indians Wai-i-lat-pui, meaning the region of rye grass. Beyond the fertile ground on the river's banks were borders of timber-land, and beyond them plains stretching to the foot-hills of the great Blue Mountains. In 1842 this wonderful country was free to any who cared to come and settle there, but as yet very few had ventured so far into the wilderness.

The chief man at the missionary camp, Dr. Marcus Whitman, was called to Fort Walla Walla on the first day of October, 1842, to see a sick man. He found a score or so of traders and Hudson's Bay clerks, almost all Englishmen, gathered there, and accepted their invitation to stay to dinner. The men were a genial company, and had already taken a liking to Whitman, who was frank and amiable, and an interesting story-teller. Gradually the conversation at the dinner table came round to a subject that was vastly important to the men present, although the outside world seemed to be paying little attention to it--to which country was this great territory of Oregon to belong, to the United States or to England? The general opinion appeared to be that under the old treaties it would belong to the country that settled it first.

In the midst of the discussion there was the sound of hoof-beats outside, the door of the company's office was flung open, and an express messenger ran into the dining-room. "I'm just from Fort Colville!" he cried. "A hundred and forty Englishmen and Canadians are on the march to settle here!"

There was instant excitement. A young priest threw his cap in the air, shouting, "Hurrah for Oregon--America's too late; we've got the country!" The traders clapped each other on the shoulder, and made a place for the messenger at the head of the table. As he ate he told them how he had ridden from the post three hundred and fifty miles up the Columbia River to let all the fur-traders know that the English were on the way to colonize the country.

Marcus Whitman smiled, and pretended to enjoy the celebration; but in reality he was already considering whether he could not do something to save this vast and fruitful region for his own nation. It was an enormous tract of land, of untold wealth, and stretching over a long reach of the Pacific coast. As he considered, Whitman heard the Hudson's Bay Company's men grow more and more excited, until they declared that they intended to take possession of all the country west to the Pacific slope the following spring.

The missionary had been expecting this struggle between the English and the Americans for the ownership of Oregon, but had not thought it would come to a head quite so soon. He left the men at Fort Walla Walla as early as he could, and rode back to the little settlement at Wai-i-lat-pui. There he told his wife and friends the news he had learned at the trading-post. "If our country is to have Oregon," he said, "there is not a day to lose."

"But what can we do?" the others asked him.

"I must get to Washington as quick as I can, and let them know the danger."

His friends understood what that meant, a journey on horseback across almost an entire continent, through hostile Indians, over great rivers and mountain ranges, and in the depths of winter. Some one pointed out that under the rules of the American Mission Board that had sent them into the far west none of their number could leave his post without consent from the headquarters in Boston. "Well," said Whitman, "if the Board dismisses me, I will do what I can to save Oregon to the country. My life is of but little worth if I can save this country to the American people."

His wife, a brave, patriotic woman who had shared his hard travels westward without a murmur, agreed with him that he must go. They all insisted, however, that he should have a companion. "Who will go with me?" asked Whitman. In answer a man who had only lately joined the small encampment, Amos L. Lovejoy, immediately volunteered.

Urging upon their friends the need of keeping the plan a secret from the Hudson's Bay Company fur-traders, the two men quickly prepared, and left the camp on October 3d. They had a guide, three pack-mules, and for the start of their journey an escort of a number of Cayuse braves, men of an Indian tribe that was not large, but was wealthy, and that seemed to have taken a liking to Whitman and his friends at the mission settlement.

The leader himself had one fixed idea in his mind, to reach Washington before Congress adjourned. He was convinced that only through his account of the riches of Oregon could the government learn what the country stood in danger of losing.

The little company got a good start, and with fresh horses, riding southeast toward the border of what is now the state of Idaho, they reached Fort Hall in eleven days. Here was stationed Captain Grant, who had always done his best to hinder immigration into Oregon, and had induced many an American settler to go no farther westward. He knew Whitman of old, and six years before had tried to stop his expedition to the Walla Walla River, but Whitman had overcome his arguments, and had taken the first wagon that ever crossed the Rocky Mountains into Oregon. As he had tried to prevent Whitman from going west before, so now he tried to prevent him from going east. He told him that the Blackfeet Indians had suddenly grown hostile to all white men, that the Sioux and Pawnees were at war with each other, and would let no one through their country, and finally that the snow was already twenty feet deep in the passes of the Rockies, and travel through them was altogether out of the question.