Owen Lovejoy Home
CITY:
Princeton
COUNTY:
Bureau
DEDICATED BY:
Committee For the Restoration of the Owen Lovejoy Home and The Illinois State Historical Society
DEDICATION DATE:
January 1, 1972 at 6:00:00 AM
The marker is located near the east edge of Princeton, on the grounds of Lovejoy Historic Site. It is on US 6, at the intersection of Peru Street and Seventh Street.
The two-story frame structure was the home of abolitionist Owen Lovejoy, who was born in Maine in 1811. Lovejoy moved into the house in 1838, when he became a Congregationalist minister. He was a leader in the formation of the Republican Party in Illinois, and he served as a Representative in the State Legislature, 1855-1857, and in the United States Congress from 1857 until his death in 1864. His home was well known as a shelter for runaway slaves. Owen was a younger brother of Elijah Lovejoy, abolitionist editor, who was killed by a mob at Alton in 1837.