Owen Lovejoy House

This two-story frame farmhouse on the edge of Princeton was one of the most consequential stops on the Underground Railroad in the entire state of Illinois. Owen Lovejoy, a Congregationalist minister, moved to Princeton in eighteen thirty-eight after watching a pro-slavery mob shoot and kill his brother Elijah in Alton. He took an oath over the body to devote his life to abolition, and he kept it.

Lovejoy was so open about sheltering freedom seekers that enslaved people across the region were told to ask for the Lovejoy Line. A hidden compartment inside the house concealed those in flight. He later won a seat in Congress, where his anti-slavery speeches shook the House floor. The home was designated a National Historic Landmark in nineteen ninety-seven and has operated as a history museum since nineteen seventy-one.