Wanderers in Wonder

Alton Illinois was once a booming town on the Mississippi. Alton is just below where the Illinois River emptied into the Mississippi and just above where the Missouri joined the Mississippi. The Illinois and Mississippi Canal system connected the City of Broad Shoulders, Chicago, with the ‘Big Easy’, New Orleans making Alton a hub of activity for local farmers, ranchers and merchants.

Alton Illinois was the site of the last of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Lincoln lost that 1858 senatorial election to Stephen A. Douglas, ‘The Little Giant’. However, the series of debates they held during the campaign launched Lincoln into the upper echelon of the newly formed Republican Party.

The Elijah P. Lovejoy Monument, Alton. 

Elijah Lovejoy was a Presbyterian Minister, Newspaperman and Abolitionist living and working in Missouri in the 1830’s. He was run out of Missouri by pro-slavery forces. He relocated to Alton just across the river from Missouri. Three times pro-slavery forces from Missouri came to Alton and three times they threw Lovejoy’s printing presses into the Mississippi. On 7 November 1837 these pro-slavery criminals attacked Lovejoy’s newspaper offices for the fourth time. They destroyed Lovejoy’s fourth printing press and in the course of the attack they murdered Elijah P. Lovejoy.

Most historians consider Minister Elijah P. Lovejoy to be the first casualty of the Civil War.

Peace…Wanderers in Wonder.