Antebellum Jefferson, Texas: Everyday Life in an East Texas Town

12. Municipal Affairs

163 Incorporation Jefferson was incorporated on March 20, 1848, by the Texas Legislature . Free white citizens constituted the corporate body, and a mayor and five aldermen constituted the legal body, capable of suing and being sued and holding and conveying real and personal property. The aldermen were to be elected from five wards. The mayor and aldermen had the capacity to create ordinances, which were enforced by the mayor as justice of the peace and by a town constable (marshal). The mayor and aldermen were to appoint a recorder and treasurer from among themselves and a constable from among the citizens of the town. Taxes required a two-thirds vote of the citizens, and citizens who paid taxes were exempt from county road duties. The scope allowed for the ordinances was typical of the period, with the exception of provisions concerning Jefferson’s status as a port: To maintain the cleanliness and salubrity of said town; to secure the safety and convenience of passing in the streets and squares, ways, lanes and other public streets and alleys; to fix the squaring and to prevent any encroachment or other undertaking on the said streets; to determine the completion and dimensions, the maintenance and repair of pavements in said streets, at the cost of the proprietors of houses, lands or neighboring lots; to fix the place or places of landing and anchoring 12. MuniciPal affairs 164 Antebellum Jefferson, Texas for all water crafts, in the stream adjacent thereto; to establish an active system of inspection over the slaves of said town; and those employed in any water craft, that may be at such landing; to establish a town guard or patrols; to provide for the lighting the streets; to determine in what part of the town, wooden chimneys shall be allowed to be erected; to prevent gunpowder to be stowed within the town and suburbs, in such quantity as to endanger the public safety; to determine on the means to be resorted to extinguish conflagration and to prevent the same; to regulate the service of persons employed in working fire engines; to permit or forbid all public amusements, whenever the preservation of order, tranquility or public safety may require it; to establish market places; to erect all public buildings; to determine the mode of inspection for all marketable commodities sold publicly in said town; to regulate every thing which relates to bakers, butchers, tavern keepers, and in all establishments in which liquors or food of any kind are sold, or persons keeping any public house whatever; to regulate the prices of draymen and teamsters, water carriers; to erect bridges whenever the public convenience of the citizens of said town may require it; and to make all other regulations which may contribute to the better administration of the affairs of said corporation, as for the maintenance of the tranquility and safety of the same. Although incorporation took place in March 1848, a charter was not obtained until 1850, with a municipal government established in late 1850 through the election of Stephen Ellis as mayor, according to the September 1, 1876, Daily Jimplecute. This lateness may have been related to the fact that there were problems with the Urquhart survey that were not resolved until November 1849; but it apparently was the result of a problem in the Act of Incorporation, which stated that the first mayor and aldermen were to be elected by citizens who had 165 Municipal Affairs resided within the corporate limits for three months and that the corporate limits were to include the headrights of Urquhart and Alley and were to be laid off after the election of the mayor and aldermen. Persons who qualified as electors obviously could not be identified until the corporate limits were established. This was done by a September 20, 1850, amendment to the Act, which established the corporate limits as “commencing at the point where the east boundary line of Allen Urquhart’s survey, leaves the Big Cypress Bayou, and running from thence in a north-west course one mile, and thence on a southwest line, or to a point where the said line may strike the Big Cypress Bayou, thence down said Bayou, with its meanders, to the place of beginning.” There is a problem with this delineation, because it describes a triangle that would encompass a portion of the Gillespie headright on the west. Nevertheless, the delineation was carried forward...