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Drennan Love family collection

 Collection
Identifier: MSS-543

Scope and Contents

The Drennan Love family collection contains a variety of materials which document Drennan Love and his descendants. Much of the material concerns the families of Anna Grace Love’s grandfather, William Alexander Love, and father, William Joseph Love. The collection contains correspondence, writings, legal materials, audiovisual materials, photographs, publications, artifacts and costumes.

Series 1, Love family, includes materials documenting Drennan Love and his descendants. A small number of items concern Drennan and his sons Albert and David. Albert Love died of yellow fever in 1884 and the series includes a commemorative book compiled by the Ascension Branch of the Louisiana Sugar Planters Association. Among the materials belonging to David Love is an autograph book with photographs of his Cumberland University, Tennessee, classmates in 1861 just before he, and probably most of his class, left to join the Confederate Army. There is a document from his war service and the oath of allegiance he made in 1865 to regain his United States’ citizenship, and a copy of the history of his unit, the Prairie Guards. The series contains a large group of materials related to William Alexander Love, including certificates and documents concerning his civic, military and veterans’ activities, and writings and publications on history and archeology. Of particular interest is the manuscript titled Autobiographical Sketch and Narrative Help's in Mississippi History which he wrote around 1925 in an attempt to tell Mississippi’s history from the appearance of the Native Americans through to the early twentieth century with his own family’s story woven in. A scrapbook of clippings on Confederate veterans’ activities attests to his active involvement with the military and veterans, and a framed collection of archeological specimens is but one example of his fascination with Mississippi’s first inhabitants. The family Bible not only lists the Love births and deaths but also the births of some of their enslaved persons, while a small group of documents concern the newspaper publishing Worthington family of Columbus, Mississippi and the Confederate veterans. The final large group concerns William Joseph Love and his cotton broking business. Correspondence with the Gayet family of Le Havre, France, a metal sign, publications, and travel information from his business trips to Europe document his company, W.J. Love Cotton. William Joseph was active in the Presbyterian church and an amateur historian and there are manuscripts and a tape of his talks, and he was also interested in writing short stories, for which he took a course at the University of Chicago. A graduate of Davidson College, he remained an interested alumni and there are some materials related to the school. A copy of a paper by Anna Grace Love on the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek and two folders of genealogical information are also included in the series.

The second series, Legal, includes deeds of land acquired by Drennan and William Alexander Love. There is also a folder of bills of sale for Drennan Love’s enslaved persons.

The Love family had a strong link with the Bethel Presbyterian Church in Lowndes County, Mississippi, from when it was built in 1834 through to its destruction by a tornado in 2002. Series 3 includes an account book and writings celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. A watercolor by the architect involved in the church’s restoration in the early 1990s is also part of the series.

Series 4, Miscellany, is a small series, with two writings by members of the extended Love family on local history being the most noteworthy items.

The fifth series includes books and other publications collected by members of the Love family, particularly by William Alexander. These are mainly focused on history, archeology and religion but there are some children’s books also.

Series 6, Photographs, includes primarily twentieth century images of William Joseph and Grace Love, and their daughter Anna Grace, at home in Columbus and at social events, with some photographs of William during his First World War service and at a cotton compress. There is a group of images documenting Grace Love and her mother, Anna Mills, at Mississippi Normal College (now the University of Southern Mississippi) and the Y.M.C.A. Blue Ridge Association student conference center at Black Mountain, North Carolina, where Anna Mills worked. Four photographs concern the Mississippi Legislature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, three of which feature William Alexander Love. He is also included in some 1914 photographs taken near the Nanih Waiya Mound in Winston County, Mississippi, a photograph at Robert E. Lee’s former home during a United Confederate Veteran’s national reunion in 1917 and another of the delegates to the Southern Presbyterian church General Assembly in Augusta, Georgia in 1886. A crayon portrait of William Alexander in his Mississippi National Guard uniform is included in this series. In addition, there is a view of Main Street and a cotton compress yard in Columbus, Mississippi, from the early twentieth century, and a group of postcards showing the activities of William Joseph’s 13th Marine Corps regiment at Quantico, Virginia, and in France in 1918 and 1919, as well as some scenes from the Pantheon de la guerre mural in Paris, and views of Bordeaux, France, from the same era.

The final three series contain objects from the collection. Series 7 is a collection of classical and semi-classical phonograph records, mainly on the Victrola label. A variety of artifacts comprises Series 8, including a small Confederate flag, five locally made chairs from the Love farmhouse, and Native American archeological specimens. The last series, Costumes, features pieces of women’s clothing, including Grace Love’s wedding trousseau from 1923.

Dates

  • 1826 - 2008
  • Majority of material found within 1840 - 1970

Creator

Access Restrictions

Open to all researchers.

Use Restrictions

Any requests for permission to publish, quote, or reproduce materials from this collection must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian for Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Mississippi State University as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Biographical Information

Drennan Love (1800-1873) was born in Chester County, South Carolina, the great-grandson of Irish immigrant James Love (c.1697-1760) who had settled first in Pennsylvania and then moved his family to South Carolina. The family prospered there but with the deaths of his parents, Janet Lockert Love (1772-1803) and Revolutionary War soldier Captain James Love (1763-1807), in quick succession, Drennan and his siblings were orphaned and Drennan was raised by an uncle.

In 1825 several members of the Love family moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where Drennan became a ferryman on the Black Warrior River at Northport. The Loves had been accompanied by the Cook family on their move west and in 1827 Drennan married Elizabeth Lovelace Cook (1807-1897). Seven years later, following the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek which opened former Choctaw land to white settlement, Drennan moved his family to Mississippi’s black prairie country at Crawford, Lowndes County, where he established a farm called Magowah. A house was built on his property in 1848 which remained until Highway 45 was built in the 1930s. Drennan also had a house in Columbus. Near his farm, he helped establish the Bethel Presbyterian Church and he continued to be an influential layman. Drennan was a commissioner for the Tombeckbee Presbytery to the General Assembly in Philadelphia in 1853 and possibly also attended the Assembly in Georgia in 1861 when the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America was formed.

Drennan and Elizabeth produced nine sons and three daughters: Mary Caroline (1827-1919), James Monroe (1830-1840), Sarah Melissa (1831-1880), Robert Miles (1833-1852), Matthew Henry (1835-1849), David Chelsea (1837-1918), John Calvin (1839-1908), James Drennan (1841-1938), Joseph Cornelius (1843-1862), Jane Elizabeth (b.1845), William Alexander (1848-1929), and Albert Clarence (1851-1884). Four sons served in the Confederate Army’s Prairie Guards, the 11th Mississippi Regiment, during the Civil War. David attended Davidson College in North Carolina from 1856 to 1860 and then studied law at Cumberland University in Tennessee until 1861 when he left for the war. Seriously wounded at Petersburg in 1864, he was invalided out of the army and became a teacher and then a farmer. After travelling west he returned to Mississippi and was elected to the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors, serving from 1876 to 1880. Active in the United Confederate Veterans, he wrote a history of the Prairie Guards. John also attended Davidson College and was a school teacher when he enlisted and was wounded at Gettysburg. Captured in April 1865, he was imprisoned and then released two months later. He returned to Lowndes County and became a farmer until 1869 when he moved to Leesburg, Florida, where he bought land, planted oranges and became a merchant.

James attended Presbyterian Synodial Junior College in La Grange, Tennessee, before the war. He was severely wounded at Gettysburg, lost a leg, and was captured. Exchanged in 1864, he returned home and then followed John to Florida. He married Mary Margaret Gaston (1856-1885) there and had a daughter but his wife, second child and father-in-law died in 1885. James married Mary’s cousin, Clara Neely Fox (1862-1937) the following year and later moved his family back to Oktibbeha County, Mississippi. He farmed with his son Albert Lee (1886-1967) at the Bell schoolhouse community just north of Starkville, remaining active into his nineties. Joseph joined the army a year after his brothers in April 1862 but died soon after of the measles and was buried at Williamsburg, Virginia. Albert graduated from the Cooper Institute at Daleville, Mississippi, after the war. He studied medicine in Mobile, Alabama, Louisville, Kentucky, and New Orleans, Louisiana. He was practicing in Darrowville, Louisiana, in 1878 when he died of yellow fever.

William served during the Civil War, enlisting in Company H of the 6th Regiment of the Mississippi Cavalry in 1863. He saw fighting at Harrisburg, Mississippi, in July 1864, surrendered at Citronelle, Alabama, on May 4, 1865, and was paroled at Gainesville, Alabama, eight days later. On his return to Lowndes County, he entered Summerville Institute at Gholson, Mississippi, and then worked on his father’s farm. William joined his brothers in Florida for about a year in the early 1870s but then returned to Mississippi and the family farm. He joined the Prairie Guards of the state militia in the 1870s, commanded the 1st Cavalry Battalion of the Mississippi National Guard in the 1890s, and retired with the rank of brigadier-general in 1906. He was also active with the United Confederate Veterans Association, acting as Adjutant for Camp 27 at Columbus and promoted to Colonel in 1923. At that time he was also president of the Mississippi Confederate Pension Board. Among his other activities were helping to establish the Patrons of Husbandry Grange, Magowah, in 1873 and becoming the Magowah postmaster in 1896. A stalwart Democrat, William was elected to the Mississippi Legislature, representing the western district of Lowndes County between 1892 and 1894, and later became a state senator from the 25th District from 1912 to 1914. Like his father, William was an active member of the Southern Presbyterian Church and was a commissioner to the General Assembly in Augusta, Georgia, in 1886. An enthusiastic amateur archeologist and historian, he contributed many articles to local newspapers and journals, including the Publications of Mississippi Historical Society and the Confederate Veteran. William married Jessie Giles Cook (1866-1947), a first cousin who had come to nurse his mother, in 1893, and the couple had two children: William Joseph “Will” (1896-1969) and Elizabeth Lovelace (1901-1990).

After graduation from Old Franklin Academy, Columbus, William Joseph worked for the cotton buyer Frank P. Phillips from October 1913. Between 1916 and 1918 he attended Davidson College but did not graduate until after the First World War. Reputedly the first to volunteer from Lowndes County, William joined the Marine Corps in June 1918, trained at Parris Island, South Carolina, and sailed for France in September 1918 with the 13th Regiment. Demobilized in August 1919, William returned to Mississippi and the Phillips firm, becoming manager and head classer in 1930. After Phillips’ death in 1949, he established his own company, W.J. Love Cotton Company, in August 1950, acting as a cotton buyer, shipper, and exporter to Europe, which he visited on business several times. William also became a director of the National Bank of Commerce, Columbus in 1946, and vice-president in 1962. Following family tradition, he was commissioner from the East Mississippi Presbytery to the Presbyterian General Assemblies in Montreat, North Carolina, in 1945, and Atlanta, Georgia, in 1959. An avid student of history like his father, he was president of the Mississippi Historical Society, and director and vice-president of the Columbus Y.M.C.A. William married Grace Electa Mills (1897-1979) in North Carolina in 1923, where her mother, Anna H. Mills, worked for the Y.M.C.A Blue Ridge Association student conference center at Black Mountain and maintained a summer cabin. Anna Mills had previously been matron at Mississippi Normal College in Hattiesburg, where Grace was a student teacher in 1917. Grace later taught at Davenport College in Lenoir, North Carolina. Grace and Will had one child, Anna Grace (b. 1924), a graduate of Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus.

Extent

56.5 Cubic Feet (: 2 SMO folders; 3 OS folders; 1 SVMP box; 1 VMP box; OSP; SMOP; WFB; AV; SMOA; LgOSA; 1 SMOCosT box; 2 OSCosT boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Arrangement

Series 1. Love family.- Boxes 1-4, 6-9; Small Oversize Manuscripts Box 37; Oversize Manuscripts Box 14; AudioVisual Box 5; Large Oversize Artifacts

Series 2. Legal.- Box 4; Small Oversize Manuscripts Box 37; Oversize Manuscripts Box 14



Series 3. Bethel Presbyterian Church, Lowndes County, Mississippi.- Box 5; Oversize Manuscripts Box 14; Wrapped, Framed and Bound

Series 4. Miscellany.- Box 5; Wrapped, Framed and Bound

Series 5. Publications.- Boxes 5, 10-12

Series 6. Photographs.- Visual Materials: Photographs Box 23; Small Visual Materials: Photographs Box 6; Small Oversize Photographs Box 2; Oversize Photographs Drawer VIII; Wrapped, Framed and Bound

Series 7. Phonograph records.- Box 13

Series 8. Artifacts.- Artifacts Boxes 16-17; Small Oversize Artifacts Box 1; Large Oversize Artifacts; Wrapped, Framed and Bound

Series 9. Costumes.- Small Oversize Costumes/Textiles Box 7; Oversize Costumes/Textiles Boxes 38, 39

Related Materials

William A. Love Manuscript, January 4, 1906, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi. "Mississippi in Gettysburg".

D.C. Love Papers, April 4, 1891-October 13, 1897, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi. Correspondence between Love and John M. Gould and E.A Carmen re: Battle of Antietam.

William Joseph Love Papers. MS 446, Billups-Garth Archives, Columbus-Lowndes Public Library, Columbus, Mississippi.

Processing Information

Some containers and folders were disposed of. Newspaper clippings were copied and disposed of. Total: 0.3 cubic feet.

Creator

Title
Drennan Love Family Collection
Status
Completed
Author
Gerald Chaudron
Date
April 2013
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Part of the Manuscripts Repository

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