"When the City Cemetery was laid out, according to a regular plan, it was found that Lovejoy's grave was in the main walk, rendering it necessary to remove his remains. This was also done by Mr. Johns[t]on, who dug the original grave. The removal took place over twenty years after the body was first consigned to mother earth, so long in fact that nothing was left but the bones; every particle of the coffin and its surroundings having disappeared."
"The Burial of Lovejoy," Alton Daily Telegraph, May 5, 1882
"After thus being trodden under foot by man and beast for several years, the late Major
Chas. W. Hunter had the remains removed to where they now are--just outside his own
family lot, but in the ground then owned by him. William Johns[t]on, a colored man born in
Scotland . . . had buried Lovejoy the first time, and had charge of this removal. He told me
that some bits of bone and 
handfuls of dust were all he could find. The second grave,
when I first knew it, was marked by an old
tombstone turned upside down, across the
upper edge of which was written in red
chalk, 'Lovejoy.' At a later day, when
circumstances needless to mention made
the great principle of free speech and free
press very dear to me, I placed upon the
grave the present simple monument--a scroll
of Italian marble, resting upon a pedestal of New England granite."
Lovejoy: An Address Delivered by Thomas Dimmock, at the Church of the Unity, St. Louis, March 14, 1888, p. 25-27.
November, 1856 A committee "living in various parts of the State" hires Alton architect J. A. Miller to create plans for a monument site. "Two plans have been drawn, one for a monument 100 feet high, pyramidal in form, seven feet in diameter at the top, 12 feet in diameter at the base, standing on a platform forth feet in diameter, and four feet high. It is to be of Illinois stone, with marble slabs inserted at the base for inscriptions."
Second design described as "75 feet high, of pyramidal shape, built of blocks tow feet thick and from 4 to 8 feet long, similar in other respects to the first named."
"A Monument to Rev. E. P. Lovejoy," Alton Weekly Telegraph, November 20, 1856.
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