JAMES R. LOVE. Well known as a successful farmer of Red river and esteemed as a citizen of the Riverland community is James R. Love, whose name appears at the introduction to this brief sketch. For a quarter of a century have his labors contributed to his own material expansion as well as to Clay county’s development, and his presence here has given an impetus to the promotion of the public weal. Thirty-six years in the Lone Star state, connected with its agricultural interests and contributing to its intelligent population, is the record of James R. Love. He reached the state in 1867, a settler from McMinn county, Tennessee, where his birth occurred September 5, 1831. His parents were John M. and M. M. (Jameson) Love, native Virginia people who immigrated to Tennessee in early life where the wife and mother soon passed away. Their family consisted of George J., once a quartz mill man in California where he died, leaving a child in San Francisco; Martha died in Tennessee as the wife of S. E. Browder; John W. B. who died in Texas; Nancy M. married Matthew Potter and died in Benton county, Texas; and James R., our worthy subject.
James R. Love acquired a fair education in the country district of his day, and assumed the serious responsibilities of life at about eighteen years of age. Having been a farmer’s son he began life as a farmer himself, working for wages until his accumulations enabled him to attempt a more independent life. He was sober, industrious and ambitious and worked year after year without loss of time. In 1861 he married Annis, a daughter of Absalom Armstrong, a native of old Virginia, and with his young wife made this time count, as best he could, during and after the Civil war. When they cast their fortunes in Collin county land and were industrious farmers there until 1880, when he sold his farm and came to Clay county. Here Mrs. Love died in 1890, after helping to make a home on the raw but fertile prairie on Red river. Their first residence was a mere ‘dugout’ and in this they lived just as happily and as contended as they did after their new and more modern home was erected. Corn, cotton and wheat have been the chief products of their farm. His tract of five hundred and fifty acres is an estate worthy many years of effort and on it he has lived well and made farming pay.
Mr. and Mrs. Love were companions together for twenty-nine years. She was born in 1837 and died leaving an issue of John A., of south Texas, a locomotive engineer; Robert S., of Motley county, Texas; Florence A., wife of J. W. Owens, of the same county; George F., of Beaver county, Oklahoma; and Sallie K., who married Alfred M. Smith and resides in Canon City, Texas.
Mr. Love did not do military duty during the rebellion, being situated so that his services as a civilian were of more import to his community than they would have been as a soldier. In early life he was a Whig, but became a Democrat on the issues of slavery and the war, and has remained so since, but yielding to the demands of the public service and supporting the best qualified men for local office. He managed the election in his precinct in Clay county for fifteen years and has served as school trustee. In domestic matters he has been a home-stayer, not even attending as much as the important sessions of his Masonic lodge, but went to the meetings of the Methodist church, where he holds a membership regularly, unless ill health prevented.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. I, p. 657.