Hermon and Margaret L. Aiken

A Salado Historical Society biography adds to the plaque. It says Hermon Aiken captained a ship carrying arms, ammunition, immigrants and supplies from New Orleans to the Texas Army, later served in the U.S. Army in the Mexican War, and rode as a volunteer ranger against Indian raids. He surveyed the land donated for Salado College, helped found the school and sat on its first board. The Handbook of Texas dates the college's start to October 1859. The society says Aiken died in 1860 and was buried in the Old Salado Graveyard.

What the plaque says

Hermon and Margaret L. Aiken New Hampshire native Hermon (Herman) Aiken worked in Illinois and Tennessee before moving to New Orleans. There, he served as a ship's captain taking supplies to Galveston in support the Texas Revolution. He lived in Texas by 1840. In 1846, with five children from his marriage to Mary Ann (Taylor), he wed German-born Margaret E. (Louchious) and in 1851 settled near Belton on Cedar Creek. The couple had seven children, and Herman worked as a surveyor. The family moved to Salado in 1859, and Herman served as trustee for the new Salado College. A community leader, he was active in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Freemasons. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 16 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Williamson County Courthouse — 22 mi
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Inner Space Cavern — 25 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.

More markers nearby

• Capt. Milton Wesley Damron — steps away
• Dr. Welborn and Louisa Adeline Barton — steps away
• James Lowry Smith — steps away
• Major Archibald Johnson Rose — 0.3 mi