Neil McLennan

McLennan sailed from Pensacola in a three-masted schooner, the Caledonia, which his party navigated themselves, and reached the Brazos mouth around March 1, 1835. They settled on Pond Creek in Robertson's colony, where he received a league on July 28. The Handbook of Texas says that winter Indians killed Laughlin McLennan, his wife and his mother and captured his three children; John McLennan was killed by Indians in 1838. In 1839 Neil scouted the Bosque with George Erath, traded his Pond Creek land for claims there, and moved his family to the Bosque in 1845.

What the plaque says

Neil McLennan Pioneer Texan for whom McLennan County was named born on the Isle of Skye, Scotland Sept. 2, 1787. Came to Texas in 1834 died in 1867. Mrs. Neil McLennan born in North Carolina August, 1797 died in 1871.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Armstrong Browning Library — 1.1 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 1.7 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 2.0 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 2.3 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.

More markers nearby

• Edward Ferdinant Forsgard — steps away
• Hallie Earle, M.D. — 0.4 mi
• Dr. Rufus Columbus Burleson — 0.4 mi
• Robertson — 0.5 mi