Love-Anderson Feud
Richland, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
An early Navarro County conflict, rooted in land disputes and complex family ties, still resonates in the region. During the Republic of Texas period, this area was subject to clashes with native peoples, as with the Battle Creek Fight or Surveyors’ Fight (1838) and Battle of Pecan Creek (1841). In Jan. 1844, President Sam Houston granted an empresario contract to Charles Fenton Mercer in an effort to stabilize settlement. Dr. William Nicks Anderson, an agent for the Mercer Colony, wrote Mercer in Jan. 1847 that “I have had many vary difficulties to encounter with – the old Texians have given me much trouble,” going on to name members of the Love and Curry families. William M. Love, his brothers, Gilbert and David, and cousin, Robert, were in Texas by 1836 and were all at the Battle of San Jacinto. Conflict arose between earlier settlers, including the Loves, and later arrivals, such as Dr. Anderson. Once Love and Anderson became rivals, so did their friends and extended families by association. On Feb. 9, 1855, years of animosities between the two men exploded into violence. On a portion of the Old Springfield Road known as Nubbin Lane, Love shot and killed Anderson on his way home. Before dying the next day, Anderson stated in an affidavit that he too had drawn his gun, thus clearing Love of first degree murder. But Anderson’s pregnant wife, Susanna, vowed revenge. On May 19, 1873, Love was shot and killed near the same place in the road; Susanna’s son Ham Anderson and cousin Alec Barekman were charged with the crime. Members of the extended family later succumbed to violence across Texas, including five young men killed in Comanche in 1874. The feud remains a common topic of conversation in the area, where numerous descendants still reside. 175 Years of Texas Independence 1836 - 2011
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the volatile years of the Republic of Texas, the Navarro County frontier saw clashes with Native peoples and an empresario contract granted to Charles Fenton Mercer to stabilize settlement, pitting established "old Texian" families like the Loves—veterans of San Jacinto—against later arrivals such as colony agent Dr. William Nicks Anderson. When Love killed Anderson on Nubbin Lane in 1855, the grievance passed to their kin: Anderson's widow vowed revenge, and Love was slain near the same spot in 1873. The bloodshed spread across Texas, and the feud is remembered still among the many descendants living in the area.
Why it matters
The feud distills the lawlessness of the Texas frontier—land disputes, kinship loyalty, and blood vengeance—into one long-running local tragedy rooted in the Republic era.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
To stand on this stretch of the Old Springfield Road in Navarro County is to stand where two Texases met and could not agree. In the years of the Republic of Texas — that brief window when Texas was its own nation, before it joined the United States — the blackland prairie here was a raw frontier. Surveyors and settlers pushed into country where clashes with Native peoples were a fact of daily life, and the inscription itself points to the deadly encounters remembered as the Battle Creek Fight, or Surveyors' Fight, and the Battle of Pecan Creek at the very edge of the 1840s.
Into this unsettled land the young Republic tried to bring order. In January 1844, President Sam Houston granted an empresario contract to Charles Fenton Mercer — an arrangement, common to Texas and Mexican settlement law, that put one man in charge of recruiting families and parceling out land in return for bringing colonists in. On paper it was a tidy instrument of stabilization. On the ground it dropped a new authority on top of people who had already bled for the country and believed the land was theirs by right of arriving first.
That collision — between the "old Texians" who came before and the colony agents who came after — is the soil this feud grew in. It was less a quarrel between two hot tempers than a structural fault line running through a whole community, and it would take decades to play out.
People & events
The two poles of the story were William M. Love and Dr. William Nicks Anderson. Love was of the earlier arrivals: he and his brothers Gilbert and David, and his cousin Robert, were in Texas by 1836 and stood together at the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive fight that won Texas its independence. Anderson came in another role entirely — as an agent for Mercer's colony, one of the newer men charged with settling the land under the empresario contract.
The friction shows plainly in Anderson's own words. Writing to Mercer in January 1847, he complained that he had "many vary difficulties to encounter with — the old Texians have given me much trouble," and named members of the Love and Curry families. That letter is a rare, dated glimpse of a grievance still gathering weight. As the inscription tells it, once Love and Anderson became rivals, their friends and kin were drawn in by association, until an argument between two men had become a division between two clans.
The years of animosity broke open on February 9, 1855. On the part of the road known as Nubbin Lane, Love shot Anderson as the doctor rode home, and Anderson died the next day. In a striking final act, the dying man swore an affidavit that he too had drawn his gun — testimony that cleared Love of first-degree murder. But Anderson's pregnant widow, Susanna, vowed revenge, and the grievance passed to the next generation. On May 19, 1873, Love was shot and killed near the same bend in the road; Susanna's son Ham Anderson and a cousin, Alec Barekman, were charged. The violence rippled outward across Texas, including five young men of the extended family killed in Comanche in 1874.
Its place in the American story
The Love-Anderson feud is a Texas chapter of an American story that runs from the southern Appalachians to the far frontier: what happens when law arrives more slowly than settlement. In places where courts were distant, records thin, and title contested, families became their own institutions — of loyalty, of protection, and too often of justice. A single killing did not close an account; it opened one that kin felt bound to settle.
The famous feuds of American memory tend to be remembered as backwoods melodrama, but their engine was usually mundane and serious: disputed land, tangled marriages, and the absence of any neutral authority both sides would trust. This marker names those very forces — "land disputes and complex family ties" — and shows how a legal instrument meant to stabilize settlement instead sorted a community into sides.
That the feud is still "a common topic of conversation in the area," with descendants living nearby, is itself the larger point. Frontier violence did not stay in the frontier era. It became family history, passed down as story, and it shaped who trusted whom for generations. This roadside is a reminder that the settling of the West was not only a matter of maps and treaties but of grudges that outlived the men who started them.
If you visit
This is quiet blackland prairie country, the kind of gently rolling farmland where it takes some imagination to picture gunfire on the road. That contrast is the reward of the visit: read the marker, then look down the lane and let the ordinariness of the place do its work. The violence happened on an everyday route home, which is exactly what makes it land.
Notice the two dates the marker turns on — 1855 and 1873 — and the detail that both killings happened near the same spot on the same old road. Standing there, you're looking at a place that a family returned to across eighteen years to close a circle. Give yourself a moment with that geography; it's the whole story in one bend of the road.
Navarro County makes an easy stop on a drive through north-central Texas, and this marker rewards travelers who like their history human-scaled and local rather than grand. Pair it with a slower loop through the surrounding county roads and small communities, where the names on old cemeteries and mailboxes still echo the families in the inscription. Take the marker's word for the facts and resist the urge to fill in more than it tells — the power here is in what actually happened, on ground you can still stand on.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · William M. Love
- · William Nicks Anderson
- · Charles Fenton Mercer
- · Sam Houston
Themes & tags
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