On February 17, 2025, from 6 - 7:30 pm, the MDI Historical Society's book club will continue to discuss LaRue Spiker's unpublished manuscript "The Mantle of Elijah." If you haven't already done so, register above and read the PDF of Part 1. Soon after registering, you will receive a link to a PDF of Part 2.
Written in the 1950s, the manuscript is part of the Historical Society's archives. LaRue Spiker (1912-1995) was a social, political, and environmental advocate on MDI as well as an accomplished journalist and writer. The manuscript follows the career of Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy, a graduate of Waterville College (now Colby College) who immigrated west as a young man. Lovejoy became an abolitionist printer, who was murdered by a pro-slavery mob while defending his printing press in Alton, Illinois in 1837. His progression from a newspaper contributor to fervent abolitionist to martyr reflects the growing divisions and violence surrounding the issue of slavery during the 1830s and influenced other anti-slavery activists like William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown.
Part 1 of the book was discussed in December. Please join even if you haven't finished the entire manuscript.