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Delaware County, Iowa

 Biography Directory

 

Allen Love

Physician

Manchester

 

 

 

      ALLEN LOVE. One of the few citizens of Delaware county remaining of the original old settlers is Allen Love, who located on part of the present town site of Manchester in the fall of 1852. Mr. Love is a native of Scotland, having been born in the city of Glasgow on the twenty-second of April, 1813. He came to America in 1852, and shortly afterwards settled in this county, having therefore resided here now nearly forty years. He has witnessed all the changes which have marked the progress and development of his adopted home since it has had a history, and as an humble and unpretentious citizen he has contributed his share to the patient labor that has brought about many of these changes. The space his biography occupies in this volume is worthily filled.

 

      Being a Scotchman by birth, Mr. Love also comes of Scotch ancestry; a descendant he is of that hardy, tenacious, thrifty, intelligent people who have poured a steady stream of warm, rich blood into the great current of American life from the earliest times.  His ancestors lived for generations about Glasgow and filled various industrial, official and other positions, such as their talents and energies raised them to in that land  where, happily, talent and energy are as much appreciated as in this " land  of the free."   His parents, Allen and Catherine Love, always resided in Glasgow, which was also their birth place, and there, too, they died. Not the least of their services to their country was their giving to it five well born and well trained children, most of whom now, however, after filling their positions in life creditably to themselves, have died, only two surviving, these being the two youngest, Alien and Agnes, the three oldest, John and Graham dying in the place of their birth, Robert dying in Minnesota, U. S.

 

     Alien Love, the subject of this notice, was reared in the place of his nativity and there married in 1836, taking to share his life's fortunes one of his own fair country women, Miss Elizabeth Oliver, who was born in the city of Edinburgh and is a descendant of Scotch ancestry, being a daughter of Thomas and Jane (Dictson) Oliver, natives of Scotland. Learning the trade of a tailor in his youth, Mr. Love followed it for a number of years in Glasgow, and was doing a large and prosperous business when he decided to leave there and come to America. He came, as we have noted, to Delaware county in 1852. At that time this country was almost a prairie and forest wilderness, and so uninviting was it to those who had been reared in a densely populated city, where, on every hand were the many evidences of advanced civilization that no one, certainly not the subject of this sketch, foresaw the greatness of its future or indeed strongly believed in it. Mr. Love's first step on locating in the county was to purchase a tract of land consisting of three hundred and twenty acres, on part of which the town of Manchester now stands. This he purchased of a Norwegian named Emerson, and locating on it he set about in an industrious way to make for himself a home. The place which he bought had a log cabin, twelve by sixteen, on it, and this is still standing, being the oldest building in the vicinity. In the spring of 1853 the town of Manchester was projected and Mr. Love sold half of his homestead to James Dyer, who laid out the new town and conducted it through the first steps of its growth. What the town of Manchester now is, every one at all familiar with the history of northeast Iowa, knows. It is not the purpose of this article to speak further of it. It will be quite proper, however, to say in this connection that Mr. Love became early identified with its interests and bore an active and conspicuous part in building it up, selling the town site in the first instance for a small consideration and helping by his own personal exertions to secure immigration and different industries for its improvement. As his means would allow he improved his own real estate in the new town, building homes for those who sought homes here, and thus adding also to the public convenience and public revenue. In the promotion of the school and church interests and the founding of those social organizations which contribute to the peace and welfare of society, and to the building up of home life, he has also done all that could be expected of a good citizen.

 

      Although now well advanced in years, Mr. Love still retains a lively interest in the affairs of the prosperous little city which he has seen grow up around him, and although he has made no noise about the part he has taken in its growth, there is probably not another man in it who feels more warmly towards it or wishes it greater good fortune in the future than he does. He has been drawn towards it by long residence and participation in its struggles. Here also reside many of the friends of his early manhood; here were the scenes of his first activities in the new world ; and more than all, here is where his children have grown up and begun, under his supervision and with the aid of his kindly counsel, the same life struggle, only on a modified scale, through which he has passed. Mr. Love has been married now for more than a half a century and the wife of his youth still abides with him, having borne him a faithful and affectionate companionship during all these years. This union has been blessed with four children, only two of whom, however, are now living, a daughter, Jane, now wife of William McIntosh, of Manchester, a sketch of whom appears in this work, and a son, Robert, now residing also in Manchester.

 

   Mr. and Mrs. Love are both members of the Presbyterian church, having been brought up in the teachings of that faith and having led lives consistent with their professions even down to serene and happy old age, rendered doubly so possibly by reason of that faith.

 

   Mr. and Mrs. Love have made two visits to their native country since they came to the United States.

 

~ source: Biographical souvenir of the counties of Delaware and Buchanan, Iowa; Chicago : F. A. Battey, 1890. Page 430-432; LDS microfilm #985424

~ contributed by Thom Carlson