October 15, 2019
John Love was a successful tin and hardware merchant and one of Jacksonville’s first trustees. He served on committees responsible for securing plans to build the town recorder’s office and fire station and inspecting and adopting the 1862 town plat. He was also instrumental in establishing the town cemetery. Around 1867, he built the house at 175 North 3rd Street for his growing family. Their stay, however, was brief. Within months John succumbed to tuberculosis; a year and a half later, his wife Anna Sophia and one of their daughters died in the smallpox epidemic of 1869.