WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1842
14,7
mother was a great great granddaughter of Roger Williams. His father was a farmer and surveyor. Gail, Jr. grew to young manhood working as a typical farm boy on his father's farm. He had only one and one-half years of formal schooling, but he possessed an investigating turn of mind, and did much to educate himself along practical lines, and he was taught surveying by his father. From early youth he was interested in a!l kinds of military events and tactics, and as a young man constantly practised rifle shooting, and captained a company of militia. He also taught school in the backwoods of the Indiana Territory. In 1822, he went to Mississippi on account of delicate health. There, he taught school and was appointed county and deputy United States surveyor, positions he held for six or seven years. He went to Texas in about 1830-1831, and settled at San Felipe in Austin's colony, where he was soon appointed to superintend official sm·veys. He represented his district in the Convention of 1833, and served in several other public capacities. In 1835 he and one of his brothers established, at San Felipe, the Telegraph a'nd Texas Register. It remained the leading newspaper of Texas for a score of years. In 1839 Gail Borden, Jr., surveyed and laid out the town of Galveston, and served there as customs collector. From 1839 to 1851, he was the general agent :lior the Galveston City Company; and during this time he invented a number of food processes-the meat biscuit, extractions and preservation of various fruit juices, and finally, the process for evaporat- ing milk. In order to have the facilities necessary for the commercializa- tion of these inventions, he moved to New York, but visited Texas yearly, maintained a home in the state, and finally died at this home. He was married three times: first, to Penelope Mercer of Amite County, Mississippi. She became the mother of all his children, but died in 1844. His second wife was Mrs. A. F. Sterne; and after her death, he married Mrs. Emeline Church. To give citation to all the source material to be found concerning Gail Borden, Jr., would require several pages of this book. The following are a few of the well-known sources for biographical data concerning this useful man: Dictiona111 of A'llw1·ican Biography, II, 457-458; E. C. Barker (ed.), The Austin Pcipers (3 vols. pa.ssim); also The Life of Stephen F. Austin, 479, 511; Johnson-Barker, Texas and Texans, (1914), III, 1251, (1916), V, 2038; W. C. Binkley (ed.), Official Cor- 1·esponclence of the Texan Revolution, etc. (2 vols. passim); Lamm· Pape1·s (6 vols. vassim); Z. T. Fulmore, The Histo1·y ancl Geog1·aphy of Texas as Told in County Names, 68-70.
TO GAIL BORDEN, JR. 1
Private
City of Houston, 23rd September, 1842.
My Dear Gail, I have just received your favor of yester- day, and I am very greatly pressed with business of the office; my furniture is also packing for my removal to 'Washington. Times here are quite stirring; and as the people have no com- plaints of delay, they all seem busy, ·while politics are pretty much
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