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Edwin Leonard Waller (November 4, 1800 – January 3, 1881) was an American businessman, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, the first mayor of Austin, Texas, and the designer of its downtown grid plan.
In April 1831, he immigrated to the Mexico state of Coahuila y Tejas. On July 20, he received a land grant from the government in present-day Brazoria County. He began a shipping business, transporting cotton from Velasco, Texas, to New Orleans, Louisiana, using his ship, the Sabine, and was once briefly arrested in Velasco for refusing to pay Mexican customs duty.
He very quickly became active in the movement for Texas independence from Mexico. On June 26, 1832, he fought and was wounded at the Battle of Velasco, an early skirmish in the Texas Revolution. In 1833, he became the alcalde of Brazoria Municipality. In 1835, he represented the Columbia Municipality at the Consultation in San Felipe de Austin, where he was chosen by the members to serve in the General Council of the Provisional Government of Texas.
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.
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 Waller County, but his remains were later moved to the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
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