d born in the State west of
the Ogeechee River.

Colonel Love, my grandfather, was eccentric in many of his opinions,
and was a Puritan in religious faith. Oliver Cromwell was his model of
a statesman, and Praise-God Barebones his type of a Christian. While
he was a boy his father married a second time, and, as is very
frequently the case, there was no harmony between the step-mother and
step-son. Their jarrings soon ripened into open war. To avoid
expulsion from the paternal roof he "bundled and went." Nor did he
rest until, in the heart of the Cherokee nation of Indians, he found a
home with Dragon Canoe, then the principal warrior of the nation, who
resided in a valley amid the mountains, and which is now Habersham
County. With this chief, who at the time was young, he remained some
four years, pursuing the chase for pleasure and profit. Thus
accumulating a large quantity of peltries, he carried them on
pack-horses to Charleston, and thence went with them to Europe. After
disposing of his furs, which proved profitable, he wandered on foot
about Europe for some eighteen months, and then, returning to London,
he embarked for America.

During all this time he had not heard from his family. Arriving at
Charleston he made his way back to the neighborhood of his birth. He
was ferried across the Pedee river by a buxom lass, who captured his
heart. Finding his father dead, he gathered up the little patrimony
left him in his father's will, should he ever return to claim it: he
then returned to the neighborhood of his sweetheart of the ferry; and,
being a fine-looking man of six feet three inches, with great blue
eyes, round and liquid; and, Othello-like, telling well the story of
his adventures, he very soon beguiled the maiden's heart, and they
were made one. About this time came off the battles of Concord and
Lexington, inaugurating the Revolution. It was not, however, until
after the declaration of independence, that he threw aside the plough
and shouldered the musket for American independence.

That portion of North Carolina in which he resided had been mainly
peopled by emigrants from Scotland. The war progressing into the
South, found nearly all of these faithful in their allegiance to
Britain. The population of English descent, in the main, espoused the
cause of the colonies. With his neighbors Love was a favorite; he was
very fleet in a foot-race, had remarkable strength; but, above all,
was sagacious and strong o