AustinPostcard - AustinPostcard

Austin Postcards, Austin Photographs, Austin History, Austin Ephemera

Edwin Waller
(by W.W. Bennet)

Edwin Waller, first mayor of the city of Austin was born on November 4, 1800, in Spotslyvania County, Virginia. He came to Texas from Missouri, and was one of the delegates from Brazoria to the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence.

In 1839, Waller was appointed to survey, sell lots, and erect public buildings in Austin, the newly-selected capital site for the Republic. In December of that year, President Mirabeau B. Lamar appointed Waller postmaster general of the Republic of Texas, but owing to a split vote in the Senate during his confirmation hearings, Waller resigned within two days.

In January, 1840, Waller was elected as the first mayor of Austin, but resigned before the end of his term and moved to his farm in Austin County (later Waller County). He was elected Chief Justice of Austin County in 1844, and re-elected in 1852 and 1854. Waller was a member of the Texas Veterans Association in 1873.

Waller fathered seven children, and moved back to Austin to live with one of his daughters a few months before his death in January 1881. He was buried in the family cemetery in Waller County, but in May 1928, his remains and those of his wife were transferred to the State Cemetery. In 1936, the Texas Centennial Commission erected a marker at the site of the old Waller home in Waller county and placed a joint monument at the graves in the State Cemetery.

In Texas, there is a town, a county, and are at least two creeks named after Edwin Waller.

Source: Kemp, L.W. "Waller, Edwin" The Handbook of Texas, p.856-857