but not by nature combative or pugnacious. Bold and fearless he was, nevertheless amiable, affectionate, and lovable. In his writings he was mild, temperate and gentlemanly. In his reports to the society he had more to say of the dangers from Catholicism than of those from slavery. In his paper he declared himself in favor of gradual emancipation, and disclaimed the name abolitionist. After 1835 he was not in the employ of the missionary society. Probably his duties as editor absorbed all his time. During his service as missionary he had been moderator of the Presbytery of Illinois. It was in 1836 that he published an account of the burning of a negro at St. Louis. Moved by the horror and inhumanity of the scene, he sharply criticised the community which allowed such a deed. Upon this, a mob destroyed his press and he moved to Alton, across the river, in Illinois.

In the contest that followed, Lovejoy acted on the advice of his ministerial friends. After his second press was destroyed, he proposed to his friends that he withdraw; but at the meeting of the synod in November, 1837, at Springfield, where one evening the situation was thoroughly discussed, with but one dissenting voice, his friends persuaded him to remain, feeling that the great principle of the freedom of the press was at stake. The third press was given by sympathizing friends in Ohio, in this contest for freedom of speech. Meanwhile, in accordance with plans, a meeting was called to convene in Alton, November, 1837, to form a state anti-slavery society. This call was signed by fifty-six of the residents of Quincy, forty-two from Galesburg, thirty-two from Jacksonville, twenty-three from Alton, twenty from Springfield and seventy-two from other places. It was held the week after the meeting of Synod and Mr. Lovejoy's friends were urged to be present.3 Among those who gathered at Alton were Edward Beecher from Illinois College and Asa Turner from Quincy. The meeting was captured by the friends of slavery and the audience heard a tirade against "Yankees," home missionaries, Sunday schools, abolitionists, and temperance societies. After the adjournment of the convention, it became known that the new press was expected. and President Beecher remained to see what would happen. The press came at night and Mr. Lovejoy and Mr. Beecher went to the landing, superintended its storing in the warehouse, and guarded it till morning. In the morning Mr. Beecher left for Jacksonville. On the following night, the warehouse was attacked by the mob and Mr. Lovejoy killed,2

This was an event to stir the country. It won to the cause of the abolitionists the fiery eloquence of the brother, Owen Lovejoy in the pulpit and as member of Congress, while the town of Alton went through a season of deep moral agitation and became a center_of anti-slavery effort. But a group of residents of this city, led by Dr. Haskell of Massachusetts, a graduate of Dartmouth, removed to Rockford, in the northern part of the state, in order to be in a region

1 Julian M. Sturtevant. An Autobiography, 222.

2 Home Missionary, December. 1835.

3 Julian M. Sturtevant. An Autobiography, 223.

4 Ibid, 224.

5 J. E. Roy, Fifty Years of Home Missions; H. Tanner, Martyrdom of Lovejoy.

where pro-slavery sentiment was not predominant. Unfortunately, these events in Alton had unhappy results for Illinois College. The excitement aroused, the hatred generated, were directed toward Mr. Beecher and the college. These feelings were entertained not alone by the mob, but by people of wealth, social standing, and even of religious reputation. The newspapers of St. Louis which had wide circulation in southern Illinois, were intensely hostile in their opposition to Illinois College. For a time there was fear of attack on the college buildings and of personal violence to Mr. Beecher. In time these prejudices were lived down, but for years. there were constant annoyances in the vicinity of the college.1

Quincy, another river town, went through a similar experience as regards the principle at issue. This city had had, to its great advantage, a strong spiritual leader in Asa Turner, of the "Yale Band," who had located there in 1830. In four years his church had become self-supporting and the town experienced "a most clear and decided moral improvement."2 Many Easterners flocked to Quincy and there was a strong sentiment of sympathy with the other centers of eastern thought like Jacksonville and Springfield. Asa Turner organized tract, Bible and temperance societies, and developed out-stations which soon became independent churches, His aim was, "a missionary and half a dozen Christian families for every county."

The first church building in Quincy gained the name of the "Lord's Barn" from its general appearance. In 1836, some people in Quincy wished to hold an anti-slavery meeting in this church; but the mere design caused a great ferment in the town and country round about and threats were made that no such meeting should be held. As the day approached many men rallied to the defence, not so much from their love of anti-slavery sentiments as because they believed in freedom of speech. Under the raised platform they stored guns, clubs, poles, etc. The speakers were the pastors of the Methodist and Baptist churches. As soon as the speaking began the mob began to throw brick and stone through windows. Joseph T. Holmes, who was both deacon and magistrate, and later a Congregational minister, led the counter charge, and a very successful charge it was, dispersing the mob altogether. After this, the better elements of society ruled in Quincy,3

The carrying out of the fugitive slave law gave deep offence to the opponents of slavery. Interesting testimony to the intense feeling of the Puritan New Englanders in Illinois on this subject is found in "The Underground Railroad," by Professor Wilbur H. Siebert.

Mr. Siebert says: "In general, it is safe to say that the majority of helpers in the north were of Anglo-American stock, descendants of the Puritan and Quaker settlers of the eastern states or of southerners that had moved to the northern states to be rid of slavery." The

1 Julian M. Sturtevant. An Autobiography, 225.

2 Home Missionary, February, 1838.

3 Manuscript History of Quincy church by Thomas Pope, in library of Chicago Theological Seminary.

Scotch communities were also centers of Underground Railroad operations as, for example, those of Randolph and Washington counties in Illinois.1

In Illinois, the southerners who gave such assistance, are traced for the most part to members of a Presbyterian church, which, under the leadership of Rev. J. Rankin, had first settled in Brown county, Ohio, because of their views of slavery. Some of these families came to Bond county, Illinois, about 1820, and later, about 1830, moved into Putnam and Bureau counties, forming the little church at Union Grove, which Aratus Kent discovered in 1829, and to which he called the attention of the Home Missionary Society, which thenceforth took it under its protection. Those who went to Bureau county united with the Princeton colony. These people were extremely active in their assistance. No complete figures exist as to the number of fugitives assisted; but one member of this band of southerners testified to the assisting of thirty-one men and women in six weeks time as the highest record reached.2

Few of those at the north who assisted runaway slaves, imbued as they were with respect for law, cared to entice slaves from their masters, or to serve as guides in the first steps of their escape. On the ground of humanity and the pity for the needy, enjoined by the Bible, northerners would give aid at their door and even speed them on their way. The few who incited slaves to leave their masters were conspicuous, and there was usually some ground for unusual bitterness of feeling on the subject of slavery in their cases.

Illinois had one conspicuous example of a man who was willing to aid in abducting slaves. This was David Nelson, who, himself a southerner, an avowed atheist and a slaveholder, had, on conversion, become a Christian minister and located in Missouri. Here he encountered so much opposition that he had to take hasty flight. Finding refuge in Quincy he allied himself with the New Englanders and their church there. In the spring of 1840 he instigated two of the pupils in his mission institute to cross the river into Missouri and aid some slaves in escaping. The students were captured and taken to the jail at Palmyra and tried. There was no legal evidence, as slave testimony was not admissible, but they were condemned to twelve years imprisonment. By their conduct they shortened their term more than one-half, and there was a remarkable revival of religion while they were there among the prisoners. One of these young men afterward went as missionary to Africa. Later, the main building of the Mission Institute was burned by a mob who came from the Missouri side of the river for the purpose.3

Everywhere in northern Illinois the fugitive slave found friends and helpers. The motives for this help to the slave are to be found in the teachings of the New England churches. Indeed, the men most prominent in these efforts were vigorous adherents of those churches. Owen Lovejoy, the Congregational minister, proclaimed in Congress, on being taunted as a "nigger stealer": "Owen Lovejoy

1 W. H. Siebert, The Underground Railroad, 90, 92.

2 Ibid, 41.

3 Thomas Pope, Manuscript History of Quincy Church: Siebert, The Underground Railroad, 155, 156.

lives at Princeton, Illinois, three-quarters of a mile east of the village, and he aids every fugitive that comes to his door and asks it." Philo Carpenter, the real founder of the First Congregational church. in Chicago, guided not less than 200 fugitives to Canada, finding vessels to carry them to its shore. Dr. Richard Eells, whose case for secreting a slave was in litigation for ten years and who was finally fined and paid the costs of the trial, was a prominent member of the Quincy church.1

Professor J. B. Turner, while at Illinois College, assisted in at least one such rescue. James Collins, the lawyer who defended those charged with breaking the Fugitive Slave Law, was of the Collins family of Collinsville, famous for their uncompromising stand on all moral questions.2

Scrutiny of the map given by Mr. Siebert, showing the lines of the Underground Railroad, reveals the suggestive fact that most of the towns given on those lines were early occupied by New Englanders and their churches. Often the name of a station given on this map is simply that of the man giving aid, but where a place is named it is apt to be a New England church center. Thus Springfield, with its church founded in 1830, was the converging point for three lines: (1) through Alton (1831) (the dates are those of the founding of churches by the missionary society) and Reno; (2), White Plains, Jerseyville (1835), Waverly (1843); (3), Quincy (1831), Adams, Jacksonville (1829). From Springfield a line extended north to Galesburg (1853) through Farmington (1841); but the usual route seems to have been by stage to Ottawa (1834), thence through Northville (1835) to Chicago. Lines also passed from Jacksonville and Springfield through Delavan. Tremont (1841), Dillon, Washington (1835), Metamora (1840), Magnolia (1851), Granville (1831), and Peru (1843), to Ottawa.

Galesburg (1853) was an especially active station on the Underground Railroad for fugitives from Missouri through Quincy (1831), Mendon (1845), Carthage (1835), Augusta (1837), Plymouth (1840), La Harpe (1848), and then by the old state road to Chicago with stations at Knoxville (1835), Osceola, Pawpaw (1844), Sugar Grove (1843) and Aurora (1840). In the northwestern part of the state there was a line conducting fugitives to points on the lake farther north than Chicago. The fugitives taking this route passed around Missouri, crossing Iowa and then through New Windsor, Andover (1850), Genesee (1839), Erie, Prophetstown, Lyndon (1840), Sterling (1842), Lee Center (1852), and Dixon (1856). Another line entering the state at Port Byron (1851), after passing Hillsdale, joined this northern route.3

From the history of Putnam county, located in the north-central part of the state, something of the origin and method of conducting such work appears. Also, earnest orators like Owen Lovejoy, Ichabod Codding and others, encouraged the people in the different towns to organize routes. Such was the sense of the need of secrecy

1 Siebert, The Underground Railroad, 107, 147, 278.

2 Eames, Historic Morgan and Classic Jacksonville.

3 Siebert, The Underground Railroad.

and caution that few, even of those actively engaged in the work, knew anything of agents along the entire line, being definitely posted only as to those stations immediately next to them on either side. The chief thought each agent had was to hurry the fugitives along beyond all possibility of capture. The fugitives who were helped along by means of this regular though secret line did not begin to appear till about 1840. They came mostly from Missouri and Kentucky, and they averaged on this one line thirty or more per year.1 By the early '40s, the deep feeling on the subject of slavery is apparent in missionary reports, though there is still a certain hesitancy to call the evil by name. This was left to the more outspoken abolitionists. In 1841 we have these testimonies to the feeling of the missionaries: "It is evidently a general feeling among the missionaries in the West that our country is rapidly advancing to a critical point in her history. Letters from all parts of the great field, written without any concert of the authors, either expressly assert or imply that a struggle is now going on which must ere long terminate for weal or woe to our beloved America. The missionaries seem to agree in their belief that the eastern churches do not appreciate the critical nature of the present opportunity to save the land."

The following citation came from an Illinois missionary: "The crisis we are approaching as a nation, it is feared, is not begun to be understood by the mass of people of God. Not the moral purity of the West alone, but the preservation of the whole community is at stake. Our country is in danger while Christians all over the land are suffering everything but Christianity to take root in the West." Another writes: "We have reached an appalling crisis. Our ablest patriots are looking out on the deep, vexed with storms, with great foreboding and failing of heart for fear of the things that are coming upon us."3

It is not claiming too much to say that the New England element led, and, guided by the leaders in the New England churches, originated and fostered the expression of anti-slavery feeling in antislavery societies and political parties. The motives were supplied in the religious teachings of the Puritan churches. The leaders in the anti-slavery societies, and later in the anti-slavery political parties, were men who were members and leaders in those churches, though they were not politicians. These years of political and moral agitation afforded the best educational training, even in times of temporary, failure for the time, when success finally did come.

The first anti-slavery society was formed in a New England settlement in Putnam county in 1835, and by 1838 there were thirteen societies in northern Illinois. We have already seen that Elijah P. Lovejoy, Edward Beecher and Asa Turner were leaders in organizing the state anti-slavery society.

1 Spencer Ellsworth, Record of the Olden Time; or, Fifty Years on the Prairie (Lacon, Illinois, 1880).

2 Home Missionary, November, 1841; December, 1841.

3 Home Missionary, November and December, 1841.

4 T. C. Smith, The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northwest. (Harvard Historical Studies), 14.