Henry Hamilton Love was a Nashvillelumberman and sportswriter. Known as the "Daddy of the Nashville lumberman," he was the first president of the Nashville Lumberman's Club. He wrote the Hardwood Code, a telegraphic code then used extensively in the trade, and urged by the Hardwood Manufacturer's Association of the United States. He was also chair of the Nashville board of censorship of moving pictures, and active in the Rotary Club.
Early years
Hamilton Love was born on December 27, 1875 on his father's farm about three miles from Nashville, Tennessee, the youngest child of James Benton Love and Mary Elizabeth Plummer, named for his grandfather. Love's father James was a coal merchant, a member of the firm of Love & Randle. His mother's father James Ransom Plummer was the mayor of Columbia, Tennessee in 1832, 1833, 1834, 1836, and 1838. Love was thus a descendant of James Ransom, and a relative of Nathaniel Macon and Kemp Plummer Battle. His father's grandmother was a Gannaway, making him also a relative of William Gannaway Brownlow and William Trigg Gannaway.
News reporter
Love left school at the age of fifteen and worked as a reporter and newswriter for the Nashville Evening Herald. He then got a job writing for the Sunday Times, and later wrote for the Nashville American. Love contributed articles on sports in the South to The Sporting News and Sporting Life. Love was chairman of the local baseball committee, and wrote several articles covering the Nashville Vols. On the 1908 team winning the Southern pennant after defeating New Orleans, Love wrote "By one run, by one point, Nashville has won the Southern League pennant, nosing New Orleans out literally by an eyelash. Saturday's game, which was the deciding one, between Nashville and New Orleans was the greatest exhibition of the national game ever seen in the south and the finish in the league race probably sets a record in baseball history".
Lumberman
Love was called by some the "Daddy of the Nashville lumbermen", was vicegerent of the Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo, and was president of the Nashville Lumbermen's Club. He worked for his brother John Wheatley Love's firm Love, Boyd, & Co, which avoided losing and in fact made money during the Panic of 1893. Starting in 1895 or 1896, Hamilton Love initially worked in a minor capacity, but was given every opportunity for advancement and learned the trade. By 1899, he assumed charge of the Nashville office of the firm. There was also a Scottsville office, where John Boyd was from. Love was first president of the Nashville Lumberman's Club, in 1910. That same year he penned the Hardwood Code, a telegraphic code used extensively in the trade, urged on by the Hardwood Manufacturer's Association of the United States, which became known as the Love code. That same year, he also wrote an article on the timber business for the Nashville American Anniversary Edition. Love was secretary of the Nashville Commercial Club. He was a charter member of the Rotary Club in Nashville in 1914. He was president of the club in 1915. Also in 1914, Love was appointed by mayor Hilary Ewing Howse as chair of his film censor board, and was named to a national board for such in 1917. Also in 1915, Love was director of the First and Fourth National Banks.
He died on May 2, 1922 of a revolver wound to the chest, ruled a suicide. He is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. The local Chamber of Commerce, in which he was also active, adopted a resolution in his memory. His "memory is dear to the citizens of Nashville. His matchless bravery in the face of the passing years that smote his frail body with pain and suffering almost incessantly will always appeal to us as an example of fine, undaunted courage. He went to his Maker with head erect, unconquered by the long-continued and well-nigh intolerable blow of physical agony." He had apparently been suffering from rheumatism. His foot was also severely injured by falling boards in 1919. He still reviewed films from his bed. His poems were read at his funeral.
