Calle Marqués de la Hermida

In 1788 grain was scarce in Cantabria and hunger was pressing. Francisco Guerra de la Vega y Cobo, together with his nephew, arranged for seven ships to sail from Philadelphia loaded with corn, flour and wheat, and sold the cargo at a quarter of the going price. For that gesture Charles IV created for him, in 1796, the Marquisate of La Hermida. The title named no great city nor military feat, but a farmstead in Herrera de Ibio, in Cantabria: fields, meadows and two old houses that went by the name of la Hérmida. The first marquis died without heirs and the title lay dormant for almost a century, until Nicolás Santa Olalla y Rojas restored it in 1896 and went on to sit in the Senate. Calle Marqués de la Hermida, in Fuente del Berro, has carried this name since at least the late 19th century. No one records when the sign went up nor which of the two marquises it honours, so the passer-by will never quite know whether they tread the memory of the merchant who brought bread or that of the senator who recovered his title.