James Love

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight with a little room to breathe. Now, some men show up in a place and leave a small footprint. James Love was not that kind of man.

Born in 1795, Love had already carried a rifle in the War of 1812 before most of the Texas story had even started. He was a lawyer by trade, a man who knew how the written word could build something or defend something. And in 1837, he and his wife Lucy, born a Ballinger, pointed themselves toward Texas.

He did not arrive as a bystander. James Love helped found Galveston. That city sitting out there on the Gulf, built on a barrier island against every reasonable objection the weather could raise.

He was in on that from the beginning. Politically, he ran in serious company. He was an ally of Mirabeau B.

Lamar, which put him near the center of the Republic's ambitions. And when the question of Texas joining the United States came to a head, Love was there too, serving as a delegate to the 1845 Annexation Convention. That is the room where the future got decided, and James Love had a seat in it.

He served as judge of the district court. He served as clerk of the United States District Court. The law ran through his life like a current, and he kept finding himself called back to it.

Then came the Civil War, 1861 to 1865. Love was not a young man by then, born back in 1795 as he was, but he enlisted anyway. He joined Terry's Texas Rangers.

That is not a small thing to put on a man's record. And when the war was over, he came back to the bench one more time, serving as the first judge of the Harris and Galveston County Criminal Court. James Love died in 1874.

Veteran, founder, lawyer, judge, delegate, ranger. He had a way of being present at the moments that mattered, and Texas has a long memory for men like that.

What the marker says

(1795-1874) A veteran of the War of 1812, James Love, a lawyer, came to Texas in 1837 with his wife Lucy (Ballinger). He helped found Galveston, and was a political ally of Mirabeau b. Lamar. Love served as a delegate to the 1845 Annexation Convention, judge of the district court, and clerk of the United States District Court. During the Civil War (1861-1865) he enlisted in Terry's Texas Rangers. Afterward he served as the first judge of the Harris and Galveston County Criminal Court. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986