Thomas Henry Borden

Gail Borden's brother had his own streak of invention. In 1840 Thomas Borden was living in Galveston, working mainly as a surveyor and butcher. He built the island's first windmill and ran it with the first local gristmill, and the first Baptist church in Galveston was organized at his home on January 30, 1840. He also invented a steam gauge for river steamboats. Because he did not believe in patents, other makers patented his design and shut him out of the trade. He moved to New Orleans in 1849 and returned to Galveston poor in the late 1860s.

What the plaque says

Thomas Henry Borden Site of the home of Thomas Henry Borden one of the "Old Three Hundred" of Austin's colonies. Surveyed the town of Galveston. Editor and one of the founders in 1835 of the "Telegraph and Texas Register. Born in Norwich, New York, January 28, 1804;died in Galveston, Texas March 17, 1877.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Moody Mansion — 1.1 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• Galveston Seawall and the 1900 Storm — 1.1 mi
  The concrete wall along the Gulf that Galveston built after the hurricane of September 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in a city of 38,000.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 1.3 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• The Strand — 1.6 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.

More markers nearby

• Samuel May Williams — steps away
• Ball High School — 0.2 mi
• Gail Borden, Jr. — 0.3 mi
• The Mexican Telegraph Company_The Zimmermann Telegram — 0.4 mi