INCORPORATION OF MANOR

Part 2 - The Elections

In accordance with an order made by Travis County Judge William Von Rosenberg, Jr. on February 4, 1913, an election was held on March 4th to determine whether or not the voters of the town of Manor wanted to become an incorporated city with the ability to elect their own governing officials and establish their own rules and regulations. Shown here are the results of that election as recorded in the Commissioners Court Minutes; 80 votes for and 35 votes against.

On March 10^th Judge Von Rosenberg declared Manor to be an incorporated city confined to the area detailed by a survey and plat map that were also recorded in the same book.

Following that, this entry was made;

"In the matter of the Incorporation of the town of Manor;

It is ordered by the County Judge of Travis County, Texas, that on Tuesday the 15^th day of April, A. D. 1913, between the hours of 8 o’clock A. M. and six o’clock P. M. at Wm. Roesle Office Building in the town of Manor in Travis County, Texas, an election be held for the purpose of electing the following officers of and for said town of Manor, to wit; a Mayor, a Marshal, and five Aldermen.”

“The qualifications of each voter at said election are as follows, to wit; each shall be a free male person who has attained the age of twenty-one years, and has resided within the limits aforesaid for the six months next preceding the day of said election, and is a qualified elector under the laws of the State of Texas, and each of the officers to be elected shall possess all of the qualification of such voters.”

Nelson Houser was appointed to be the presiding officer to hold the election and was given full power to select the people needed as Judges and Clerks to assist him in carrying out  the election. With their help, he was authorized to hold the election after the proper notice had been given in accordance with the manner and period of time required by law. The County Clerk was directed to provide Mr. Houser with the information and documents necessary to carry out the judge’s order.

On April 17^th The Austin Statesman newspaper printed the following;

“The first set of city fathers for Manor were elected Tuesday, as follows; Mayor, J. P. Lockwood; Alderman, W. H. Wentland, Dr. F. C. Gregg, W. A. Hiller, C. A. Johnson and S. H. E. Smartt; City Marshal, Henry Lockwood. There was no opposition except for marshal. The election was very quiet.” 

A follow-up article on April 23rd said;

“By today’s mail, provided the trains keep running, the first Mayor of the city of Manor will receive his commission as such officer, signed by William Von Rosenberg, County Judge. Judge Von Rosenberg prepared the commission yesterday, affixed his signature and an impressive gold star under the proper seal, after which he deposited it in the mail, addressed to J. P. Lockwood, Mayor. The County Judge also signed and sent out certificates of election to the six other officials whose names follow; W. H. Wentland, F. C. Gregg, W. A. Hiller. S. E. Smartt and C. A. Johnson, Alderman; Henry J. Lockwood, City Marshal.”

One year later, on April 7, 1914 all were reelected for a second term with the exception of the City Marshal who was replaced by Mackey (Mackie) Jester who had previously served as a Travis County Constable.

A little over 6 years later, a story under this newspaper headline ;

told how Manor's first Mayor, Joseph Preston Lockwood, and his wife, Emma Lacker Lockwood,  died when a west-bound Houston and Texas Central Train hit their car while it was crossing the railroad tracks in Manor, November 17, 1920.

Sub headlines read;

The November 18th edition of The Statesman newspaper gave these details of the accident;

"The accident in which the aged couple were killed occurred Tuesday afternoon at three o’clock as they were crossing the Texas Central track near the Manor depot. They were riding in a closed car and had just left the business district for the Lockwood home on the outskirts of Manor. In attempting to cross the track ahead of the Texas Central train which was coming from the east they failed to make the necessary distance and the engine crashed into the rear end of the automobile hurling the vehicle and its occupants down the track embankment. A number of persons rushed to the Lockwood’s assistance and pulled them from the wreckage of the car. Mrs. Lockwood died twenty minutes after the accident without ever regaining consciousness while her husband survived in a semi-conscious condition until six o’clock Wednesday morning when he too breathed his last."

A board of inquiry held that same day exonerated the train crew of all responsibility for the accident. It appeared that Mr. Lockwood did not see or hear the train coming. The windows of the car were closed  and witnesses said he didn't increase or decrease his speed while crossing the tracks. 

News of the tragic accident was carried in many area newspapers, even making front-page headlines as far away as Monroe, Louisiana where their son, Joseph Edwin Lockwood lived.

At the time of the printing of this story it was not yet known in Monroe that J. E. Lockwood's Father had also passed away.

INCORPORATION OF MANOR

Part One - The Petition 

Although James Manor took possession of the land that is now the City of Manor in 1841, it remained wide-open prairie land until about 1850 when he moved his family from Webberville (known then as Webber's Prairie) to his land and built a cabin near Gilleland Creek. Over the next few years others began to move into the area and slowly formed a recognized community. The 1870 U. S. census listed them merely as residents living in 
Travis County Justice Precinct No. 2. 

Even when they began to establish churches, schools, a post office, a cemetery, etc., they didn’t plat or consider themselves to be a town until 1872. When James Manor donated land to the Houston and Texas Central Railroad on which to build their tracks running from Houston to Austin in 1871, the residents of the area officially platted a roughly square area, containing 80 blocks divided into lots, and named the new townsite Manor.

Still considered a community or village, the area began to grow. The 1890 census showed a population of over 400 people and according to the Austin History Center, by 1901 there were almost 500 households, and Manor was considered to be the “second largest city in 
Travis County”.

Even so, it would be 12 more years before Manor would seek to become an incorporated city with the ability to elect its own officials and make its own rules and regulations. On February 4, 1913 a petition signed by forty-three of the citizens of Manor was presented to the County Court of Travis County requesting that the necessary steps be taken to allow Manor to become an officially incorporated city.  The signers of the petition were: Nelson Houser, James T. Harrell, J. S. Mayfield, A.P. Hansen, H. C. Allison, S. A. Sellstrom, H. C. Johns, O. W. Anderson, A. N. Anderson, C. H. Eva, W. H. Wendland, Frank C. Gregg, S. E. Smart, J. O. Watt, J. E. Hickman, W. M. Allison, W. P. Rowe, J. H. Allison, W. R. Wray, C. A. Johnson, A. F. Loftis, J. R. Keltner, I. N. Mayfield, Joe Dupree, O. T. Johnson, J. H. Empie, S. M. Jester, A. G. Sandberg, H. P. Lockwood, W. E. Ware, D. C. Ashmore, D. H. Williams, H. B. Howse, Henry Gregg, J. P. Lockwood, Pat Lockwood, W. J. Wilde, Louis Klein, W. A. Marcuse, J. W. Swenson, Charles W. Houser, Louis Hoffman and B. Pledger. (names spelled as shown on court documents)

The petition read as follows;

“Now come your petitioners who reside in the town of Manor, Travis County, Texas, and who are inhabitants and resident citizens of the hereinafter described and proposed incorporation of the town of Manor, Travis County, Texas, and who are qualified voters under the Constitution and laws of the State of Texas, and respectfully file this our application for the incorporation of the proposed said town of Manor, Texas, and represents that the territory of the proposed town contains more than 500 and less than 10,000 inhabitants. And your petitioners respectfully ask that your honor make an order that an election be held in compliance with the Statutes of the State of Texas, in such cases made and provided.” 

Included in the petition were details of a survey that had been conducted by H. G. Lee, County Surveyor, Travis County, Texas, giving the boundaries of the territory that was desired to become the incorporated town, along with a plat map of the area surveyed.

After determining that he signers of the petition were qualified voters of the area requesting to be incorporated and that the area contained the number of residents required by law, Judge William Von Rosenberg, Jr. ordered that an election be held on March 4, 1913 at the William Roesle office building in Manor to decide whether or not the citizens wanted to become incorporated. Shown below is his signature as it appeared in the court records.

William Roesle was born in Switzerland in 1867. He came to Manor in 1889 and became a naturalized citizen in 1914. He owned a blacksmith shop in Manor in the early 1900’s and advertised as a Kadette radio salesman in 1936. He ran for mayor of Manor in 1939 and for Justice of the Peace in 1940. After living in Manor for 60 years, he died of a heart attack in 1949 and is buried in the Oakwood Cemetery Annex in Austin. His death certificate erroneously lists his birthplace as Sugarland, Texas.

William Von Rosenberg, Jr. was born in Austin in 1859. He served as Justice of the Peace from 1882 to 1886, was Assistant Fire Chief of Austin Fire Dept. in 1886 and 1887, and was elected Travis County Judge from 1891 to 1894. He then held the position of city recorder for Austin for two terms and was County Judge again from 1913 to 1916. He was very active and involved in many road and bridge improvements in Travis County and had a long and distinguished military career. He died, alone in his back yard in 1919 at the age of 59 years, 11 months and 21 days as a result of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Austin.

Nelson Houser (Hauser) (Howser) was one of two clerks responsible for recording the details of the election to incorporate Manor on March 4, 1913. He replaced J. P. Lockwood as presiding officer responsible for a future election held on April 15th of that same year. A street in Presidential Meadows appears to be named for him. 

H. G. (Horatio Grooms) Lee was born in 1848 in Austin. In 1859 he was among a group of boys who “set fire to Congress Avenue” in Austin. He served as a member of the Frontier Battalion, Company D of the Texas Rangers in 1874. He was elected on the ninth ballot as City Marshal of Austin from 1883 to 1885. Elected as Travis County surveyor from 1899 to 1903, he then served as City Engineer of Austin from 1903 to 1905. After this, he was again elected Travis County surveyor, a position he held until the time of his death in 1923. Never married, at the age of 75 he was said to be Austin’s oldest bachelor and was still considered to be an eligible catch. In 1922 a newspaper headline said this about him;