Lovejoy Family History Day

The state of Illinois contains a variety of Lovejoy family history, from the Owen Lovejoy Homestead to the Elijah Parish Lovejoy monument. As we are starting to grow weary of the road we chose to do all of it in one day. This is no small task as the homestead is in Princeton, IL towards the central north of the state and the monument is in Alton, IL towards the south just across the river from St. Louis, MO.

Here we are officially in front of the Owen Lovejoy Homestead. Owen is Elijah's great great grandfather.

Just across a field and a parking lot is the house where Elijah's grandfather Elijah P. Lovejoy III grew up. It's now the local Elk's Lodge.

The Lovejoy Homestead has been turned into a museum.

It's a lovely old farm house.

With my favorite kind of porch.

The inside has been set up to replicate what an Illinois farm house would have looked like at the time. Some of it is artifacts of Owen Lovejoy and the Lovejoy family, but much of it is normalized for the era.

This is an office desk that would have been like Owen's

This is a photograph of Owen Lovejoy. He was a congressman and a friend of Abraham Lincoln's. He was also an abolitionist, and the younger brother of Elijah Parish Lovejoy who was killed defending his news press from an angry pro-slavery mob.

This spoon was found in the basement of the house. It is inscribed with the name "Lovejoy" on it. It has been framed and put on the wall of the house. Reflected in the glass is some of the current Lovejoys acting out typical Lovejoy behavior.

Not only was Owen an abolitionist, but his house was part of the underground railroad. He openly admitted to helping runaway slaves in a speech to the House of Representatives.

A display of the hiding place for the runaway slaves located in the walls of the house.

Izzy peeking through the entrance to the hiding place.

A replica of the house.

The kids listened to the tour guide tell them about old kitchens and how they work.

Eli asked her questions and communicated some of the information we have learned about old kitchens from the various historical sites we have experienced on our journey.

right near the house is an old school house that was moved to the site to be part of the museum.

The kids really enjoyed being in school, even though it was an old school and just a museum piece.

They all sat at desks and listened to the tour guide, who is a retired teacher, tell them stuff about schools in the old days.

It took us five hours to drive from the homestead in Princeton to the monument in Alton. We passed through and had lunch in Peoria, which turns out to have a very beautiful fancy neighborhood. When we did research on why there had been such wealth in Peoria, it turned out that they used to make alcohol there, and that much of the lions share of the money made doing that happened during prohibition. Up until that time we had always heard Peoria described as the most normal American town. Show biz people used to talk about a joke "playing" in Peoria, as a measure of whether it would be generally acceptable to mainstream America. We did not expect to find the rather fancy town that we were confronted with when we arrived. We had a very nice lunch at a little place called Cyd's. Elijah wanted to take a picture of the kids playing on the playground in Peoria and place the caption, "Does it play in Peoria?" but once we finished lunch we really just wanted to get back on the road and drive to Alton. We arrived in Alton just before sunset.

The memorial is in the cemetery.

Both of these guys are named Elijah Parish Lovejoy.

The monument is rather impressive with its trumpeting angel and the two eagles, and the lion supported urns. One wonders exactly why a town that went into a rage and killed a man, dumping him in an unmarked grave and leaving him there for years, would then dig him up and build him this rather elaborate monument.

It's a weird thing to have your family name carved in marble on a big construction like this. I wonder what Eli thinks about it?

The youngest Elijah Parish Lovejoy standing in front of an image of the oldest.