Note 81 — VIII
Reading edition
Alton, twenty-five miles above St. Louis, is the principal city of Madison County, Illinois. In 1807 the French erected here a small trading post. Rufus Easton laid out the town (1818), and named it for his son. The state penitentiary was first built at Alton (1827), but the last prisoner was transferred (1860) to the new penitentiary at Joliet, begun in 1857. Alton was the scene of the famous anti-Abolitionist riot of November 7, 1837, when Elijah P. Lovejoy was killed.—Ed.