John Veatch

John Allen Veatch (March 5, 1808 – April 24, 1870) was an American surgeon, surveyor, and scientist, was known for his discovery of large deposits of borax at Tuscan Springs, California, on January 8, 1856.

Biography Veatch was born on March 5, 1808. In 1834, he moved with his family to Texas, where he surveyed for the Mexican government. He received two land grants in 1835, one located in what would become Beaumont, Texas, and another near the future Sour Lake, Texas. After the Texas Revolution, where he served as a surgeon, Veatch moved to California, where he discovered borax at Tuscan Springs in Lake County, California, on January 8, 1856.

Possible identification as Judge Holden Veatch has been considered a popular candidate for the historical Judge Holden, mentioned in Samuel Chamberlain's autobiography My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue and, later, the historical novel Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Like Holden, Veatch either commanded or was second in command of a scalp-hunting party into Mexico. Holden was also described as a huge man, which matches the physical description of John Veatch given in the book Tuscan Springs, a historical account of the southwest during this time: "At six feet, four inches tall and more than 200 pounds, the auburn-haired, blue-eyed doctor was an imposing character, serving as a volunteer soldier during the Mexican-American War (for which he recruited both of his sons) and acting as a field surgeon from 1846 to 1848. After the war, he moved to San Antonio and remarried. However, the marriage did not go well, and he eventually took his sons with him to the newly acquired US territory called California, following the forty-niners in the 1850s." Like Veatch, Holden was also a polymath and Chamberlain described that he was "great in geology and mineralogy", a description that applies exactly to Veatch. Others have speculated that Charles Wilkins Webber or Michael Hancock Chevallie are others possible historical identifications for Judge Holden.