Alton Illinois and the Underground Railroad

Mike and I took a history tour of Alton Illinois on Saturday.  Here is some of what we learned.

Alton is on the Mississippi River across from St. Louis.  Illinois was a free state.  Missouri was not.

In the 1830's, escaping slaves were being absorbed by the free Black communities around Alton: Hunterstown, Rocky Fork, and Wood Station. Rocky Fork and Wood Station were rural areas; their farms stayed in the families for over one hundred years in most cases. Source:www.altonweb.com
This is a picture of the cemetery and African Methodist Episcopal church at Rocky Fort.  The original church was burned by vandals.  This seems to be typical of most of the underground railroad sites.  They are lost to history.  

Enos apartment building which legend says was a part of the Underground Railroad.
Here I show how close it is to the river.  In the 1800's the green park area next to the water was not there.
According to the web, 'Stories describe a tunnel that was suspected to begin at the Mississippi river, leading up a hill in Alton and the through the Enos Apartments that eventually lead to safer sites.  When you under stand the "tunnel" refers to a path, it begins to make more sense.'

Monument to Elijah Lovejoy.  He was a martyr to the Abolitionist cause.  He was killed by a mob at a warehouse in Alton.  He was protecting his new printing press when he was shot.
According to the web (www.altonweb.com), the mob action at the warehouse in Alton was the first (unrecorded) battle of the Civil War.

Even though officials in Illinois largely ignored Lovejoy's murder (except Lincoln) and no one was charged in his death,  it attracted national attention and stirred up the abolitionist cause.  Former US Senator from Illinois, Paul Simon, wrote in a biography of Lovejoy, that Lovejoy was a man "whose death would electrify the nation"

Free blacks in Alton had trades but a lot worked as brick masons.
"The economic activities of African Americans in Illinois were restricted but the state's Black Laws, enacted when the state joined the Union in 1819.  These laws restricted the occupations blacks could purse, virtually eliminated their civil rights and controlled the entry of new blacks into the state.  Aiding runaway slaves was a felony under the Codes."  www.blackpast.org