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This article is from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

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Love, William Carter

by Ralph Houston Grogan, 1991

1784–3 Dec. 1824

William Carter Love, lawyer and congressman, was born near Norfolk, Va., the son of Samuel and Jean Love. He moved with his family to Chapel Hill where his father was steward of The University of North Carolina in 1799. Love was tutored at home, then studied law at the university from 1802 to 1804. He was admitted to the bar and began to practice in Salisbury in 1806. From 1815 to 1817 he served as a Democrat in the Fourteenth Congress. After his term in the House, Love resumed his law practice in Salisbury. He lived on a plantation seven miles east of Salisbury on the Yadkin River.

Love first married Elizabeth Macay, daughter of Judge Spruce and Fanny Henderson Macay. They had one child, Robert E., who later moved to Mobile, Ala. His second wife was Sally Yarboro, daughter of Captain Edward Yarboro and granddaughter of Alexander Long. They had two sons, William and Julius.

Love and his second wife were buried in the Yarboro family graveyard in Salisbury on the east side of the first block of North Main Street. By 1880 a hotel covered the burying ground. His obituary in the Western Carolinian reads in part: "Died at his seat near Salisbury William C. Love attorney, age 40. He had a mind and talents of the first order and he was no less distinguished for forensic eloquence at the bar than for the urbanity of his deportment in the private and social circle. He had already represented this district in Congress and promised to attain higher honors for himself and become more useful to his country."

References:

Biog. Dir. Am. Cong. (1961).

James S. Brawley, personal contact, April 1978.

Daniel L. Grant, Alumni History of the University of North Carolina, 1795–1924 (1924).

Orange County Deed Book 31 and Will Book D (Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough).

Rowan County Deed Book 10 (Rowan County Courthouse, Salisbury).

Jethro Rumple, History of Rowan County (1881).

Salisbury Western Carolinian, 9 Nov., 7 Dec. 1824.

John H. Wheeler, Historical Sketches of North Carolina from 1584 to 1851 (1851).

Who Was Who in America, historical vol. (1963).

Additional Resources:

"Love, William Carter, (1784 - 1835)." Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Washington, D.C.: The Congress. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=L000460 (accessed June 30, 2014).