Riot at Alton, Illinois
Slips from the office of the St. Louis Bulletin and Republican state that the printing office of the Alton Observer, an abolitionist paper was attacked by an assemblage of the citizens of that place, on the night of the 22d, and the printing materials destroyed.
The St. Louis Republican says, — ‘The party by whom the act was consummated met Mr. Lovejoy, before the demolition of the office, and were disposed to inflict upon his person some gross indignity; but upon his appealing to them, in supplicating tones, to be spared, on account of his family, they suffered him to pass unharmed. On their approach to the office, they found it guarded by numbers of the Abolitionists. Their measures, however, were speedily taken, and availing themselves of the protection of a wall in the neighborhood of the building, they poured a volley of stones upon the persons in and about the office. …..The press was then broken into pieces, and every description of material scattered in the streets and elsewhere…………………….We noticed, quite recently, in a St. Louis paper, an inflammatory article directed against the Alton Observer, and we feared, at the time, that such as outrage as this would follow……..
(Liberator, Sept 8, 1837, pg 2)
