Owen Lovejoy and His Connection to Myra Bradwell

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Lifespan: 1811-1864

In History: Owen Lovejoy was a fierce abolitionist. In 1837, he witnessed the murder of his older brother, Elijah Lovejoy, by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Ill.

Connection to Myra: Lovejoy was a friend of Myra Bradwell's parents, Ebenezer and Abigail Colby, both of whom were abolitionists. It's likely Lovejoy’s visits to the Colby household would have blended abolitionist networking and Liberty Party organizing. What we also know is that Myra had a sister (Ludy Waldo) who called Owen Lovejoy her pastor, and he was active in a regional network of antislavery churches in Illinois that included Congregationalists and Free Baptists. Bradwell was a Baptist and it is plausible that Lovejoy was her pastor too.

Behind the Novel: Lovejoy was the son of a clergyman. In 1854, he was elected to the Illinois Legislature and, in 1856, to Congress, where he was serving his fourth consecutive term when he died in 1864. Lovejoy was also a close friend and political ally of Abraham Lincoln. In Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin writes that Lincoln considered Lovejoy “the best friend [he] had in Congress.”