|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
Oliver
Loving was one of the earliest Texas cowmen. He has been called 'The Dean of
Texas Trail Drivers', a title he earned through his fearless drives of large
longhorn herds through territory where no others had gone before. He came from a
pioneer family and spent his whole life living dangerously, preferring to be
always on the outermost edges of the advancing frontier.
Oliver
was the son of Joseph and Susannah Mary (Bourland) Loving, was born in Hopkins
County, Kentucky, on December 4, 1812. On January 12, 1833, he married Susan
Doggett Morgan, and for the next ten years he farmed in Muhlenberg County,
Kentucky. Oliver and his older
brother, James, married sisters, Susan and Margaret Morgan.
In 1843, Oliver and his wife, Susan, James and his wife, Margaret, and
their sister, Eveline, and her husband, Ellis Littlepage, with their children,
departed Hopkins County for the Republic of Texas.
They
pushed off in a flatboat on Pond River at Free Henry Ford. Their journey took
them down Pond River to Green River, down Green River to the Ohio River, down
Ohio River to the Mississippi River, down the Mississippi to New Orleans,
Louisiana.
At New
Orleans, they took a steamboat back up the Mississippi to Red River, up Red
River to Shreveport. At Shreveport, they purchased oxen and wagons and traveled
about 140 miles to Lamar County, Texas.
After
about one year in Lamar County, they felt it was overcrowded. Both Lovings moved
to Dallas County. The James Lovings permanently settled there as the 16th white
family to make Dallas County home. Oliver Loving moved to adjacent Collin County
where he went into the freight business. He hauled supplies from as far away as
Houston.
