Thomas Henry Borden

     Thomas Henry Borden was born on 28 January 1804 in Norwich, Chenango County, New York.^1,2 He was the son of Gail Borden Sr. and Philadelphia Wheeler. He married first Demis Woodword on 4 June 1829.² He married second Lovisa R. Graves in 1838.² He died on 16 March 1877 in Galveston, Galveston County, Texas, at age 73.²
     
     Thomas H. Borden arrived in Coahuila and Texas in 1824 and was one of Austin's Old Three Hundred. In 1830, he was Austin's official surveyor. With his brother Gail, in 1835 he founded the first newspaper in the colony. He was in the "Grass Fight," and also took part in the storming of San Antonio. He helped lay out the city of Houston in 1836, and in 1837, entered the real estate business in Columbia. He was the builder of the first mill for grinding grain in Galveston, and he invented a steam guage that was the first to measure the amount of steam in a boiler by mechanical device.^2,3 He and Demis Woodword had two children.