Edwin Waller
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Edwin Waller | |
---|---|
1st Mayor of Austin | |
In office January 1840 – August 1840 | |
Preceded by | Office established |
Succeeded by | Thomas W. Ward |
Personal details | |
Born | Edwin Leonard Waller November 4, 1800 Spotsylvania County, Virginia, U.S. |
Died | January 3, 1881 Austin, Texas, U.S. | (aged 80)
Resting place | Texas State Cemetery |
Edwin Leonard Waller (November 4, 1800 – January 3, 1881) was an entrepreneur, signer of the
Texas independence
He was born in
In April 1831, he immigrated to the
He very quickly became active in the movement for Texas independence from Mexico. On June 26, 1832, he fought and was wounded at the
On February 1, 1836, he was elected as the Brazoria delegate to the Convention of 1836 in Washington-on-the-Brazos, where he signed the newly adopted Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2. At the convention, he served on the committee that helped draft the Constitution of the Republic of Texas.
1839 Austin city plan
In 1839, he was chosen by Texas President
Other pursuits
On October 13, 1839, he offered his house for the meeting place to establish the first Masonic Lodge in Austin.
On January 13, 1840, he was elected the first mayor of Austin. He resigned before the end of his term, however, and moved to Austin County. A new county formed from parts of Austin County and neighboring Grimes County was renamed Waller County in his honor in 1873.
In 1861, Waller represented Austin County at the Texas secession convention. As one of the last living signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, he was given the honor of signing the secession ordinance first after Convention President Oran Milo Roberts. The convention again regathered on March 4 to affirm its decision to leave the union and approve the "Constitution of the Confederate States of America"; although the Provisional Confederate Congress admitted Texas on March 1.
In 1873, Waller served as the first president of the Texas Veterans Association.
He died on January 3, 1881, in Austin, where he moved shortly before his death to live with one of his daughters. He was buried in
External links
- Edwin Waller from the Handbook of Texas Online
- Texas State Cemetery: Edwin Waller
- Entry for Edwin Waller from the Biographical Encyclopedia of Texas published 1880, hosted by the Portal to Texas History.
- History of Austin Lodge #12
- KLRU: Austin History
- Waller Creek
- Texian Independence Convention Delegates
- Texas, the Dark Corner of the Confederacy: Contemporary Accounts of the Lone Star State in the Civil War. U of Nebraska Press; 1994 [Retrieved 6 August 2017]. ISBN 0-8032-7036-4. p. 235–237.