Borden, Gail

Borden, Gail, 1801–74, American dairyman, surveyor, and inventor, b. Norwich, N.Y. He was for several years a deputy surveyor in Mississippi; afterward he joined the colony of Stephen F. Austin in Texas. There, besides farming, stock-raising, and newspaper activities, he superintended the surveying of lands for Austin. He laid out the city of Galveston, where he became collector of customs. After returning (1851) to New York, he worked on a process of evaporating milk, which he patented in 1856. Jeremiah Milbank backed him financially, and the Borden Milk Company (now the Borden Family of Companies, including Borden Foods Corp. and Borden Chemicals Inc.) opened its first evaporating plant in 1858. During the Civil War his product was found to be of great value to the army, and its use spread rapidly afterward. Borden subsequently also patented processes for concentrating fruit juices and other beverages.

Bibliography

See biography by J. B. Frantz (1951).

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Borden, Gail (1801–74) surveyor, inventor; born in Norwich, N.Y. In 1822 he surveyed land in Mississippi, then joined his family at Stephen Austin's colony in Texas where he worked as the official surveyor. During the Texas war for independence from Mexico, he and his brother published the area's only newspaper; he also drew up the first topographical map of the republic and laid out the city of Galveston. Motivated by the problems of obtaining food on the frontier, in 1851 he invented a meat biscuit (pemmican), the first of his food experiments. In 1853 he traveled to New Lebanon, N.Y., to use the Shaker colony laboratory for experiments to condense milk. His patent for "a process of evaporating milk in a vacuum" was granted in 1856. In 1861 a "condensing" factory in Wassaic, N.Y., began production and the milk was used by Union soldiers. He returned to Texas to continue his experiments and was awarded a patent for concentrating juices in 1862.