Trailblazer Put Meat on American Tables

LOVING, OLIVER (1812–1867).Oliver Loving, cattle driver, 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. The Lovings became the parents of nine children, four of whom were born in Texas. In 1843 Loving and his brother and brother-in-law moved their families to Texas. In the Peters colony, Loving received 639.3 acres of land in three patents and counties—Collin, Dallas, and Parker. The family stopped for a year in Lamar County and had settled in Collin County before 1850. Loving farmed and, to feed his growing family, hauled freight. By 1855 the Lovings had moved to the future Palo Pinto County, where they ran a country store near Keechi Creek and ranched. The first assessment roll of Palo Pinto County, taken in 1857, listed Loving with 1,000 acres of land. To market his large herd, Loving drove them out of Texas. In 1857 he entrusted his nineteen-year-old son, William, to drive his and his neighbors' cattle to Illinois up the Shawnee Trail. The drive made a profit of thirty-six dollars a head and encouraged Loving to repeat the trek successfully the next year with John Durkee.