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Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Tombstone Tuesday: Texas Governor Joseph Draper Sayers, and His Brother


The most famous ancestor of my great uncle Philip Edgar Sayers Sr. is his (half-) uncle, Joseph Draper Sayers (1841-1929).  The photo above was provided by Hodson Sayers.

In his illustrious career, Joseph was Governor of Texas (1899-1903), a United States congressman (1885-99), Lieutenant Governor (1879-81), chairman of the Democratic state executive committee (1875-8), and a Texas state senator for then-District 26, representing Bastrop and Fayette counties (1873). 

After his service as governor, Joseph was chairman of the state Industrial Accident Board (now the Texas Workers' Compensation Commission) 1913-5, a regent of the University of Texas in Austin in 1916, a member of the Board of Legal Examiners 1922-6, and a member of the Board of Pardon Advisors from 1927 until his death on May 15, 1929.

Joseph was born born at Grenada, Mississippi, on September 23, 1841. the first child of Dr. David Sayers (1811-1886) and his first wife Mary Thomas Peete Sayers (1821-1847).  After moving to Bastrop with his father and younger brother William in December 1851, Joseph attended the nearby Bastrop Military Institute, and was its first graduate.  He joined the Confederate Army in 1861, reaching the rank of major in 1864 and serving on the staff of General Thomas Green (for whom his father named his first post-war son, Philip Sayers Sr.'s father, Thomas Green Sayers, 1865-1910).

After the war, Joseph studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1866.  He partnered with George Washington (Wash) Jones in Bastrop for ten years.  He was also an active Mason, serving as Grand Master of Masons in Texas June 1875 to June 1876.


Above:  Joseph Draper Sayers in July 1862.  Warner, Harry T. Texans and their state; a newspaper reference work, book, 1918; Houston. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth41332/m1/15/?q=Sayers: accessed September 7, 2020), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Amon Carter Museum.

Below:  an undated carte de vista of Joseph D. Sayers as a young man in Bastrop, Texas, probably between 1865 and 1873.   Part of the Prints and Photographs Collection of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission; public domain.  Cropped and enlarged here.




Above:  J. D. Sayers in 1892, during his service in the US House of Representatives.  From Daniell, Lewis E. Personnel of the Texas State Government: With Sketches of Representative Men of TexasMaverick Printing House, San Antonion, Texas, 1892, after page 180.  Same photo used in Murlin, Edgar Lewis. An Illustrated Congressional manual; the United States Red BookAlbany, J. B. Lyon, 1896, illustration after page 224.  Public domain, also found here.

Below:  The Governor Sayers plot at Fairview Cemetery, Bastrop, Texas, about June 2012.  Photo by and used with permission of Gerry Beathard. 



Governor Sayers is buried between his two wives, Ada Walton Sayers (1846-1871), who died three years after their marriage in 1868, and her sister, Orline "Lena" Walton Sayers (1851-1943), who he married in 1879.  Both marriages were childless.  Others buried in the fenced-in plot include the Walton sisters' mother, Maria L. Acee Walton (1825-1886) and their brother James F. Walton (1844-1884).


Above:  Tombstone of Joseph D. Sayers in Section E(B) in the historic Fairview Cemetery, Bastrop, Texas.
Below:  Texas historical marker on the gravesite.  Both photos by Curtis D. Craig of FindAGrave.



Above:  Former Texas Governor Joseph Draper Sayers (1841-1929) in 1920. Part of the Prints and Photographs Collection of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission; public domain.

Below:  Orline "Lena" Walton (Mrs. Joseph Draper) Sayers (1851-1943) in 1895. From Hinman, Ida. The Washington Sketch Book, Hartman & Cadick, Printers, 1895: Washington (D.C.), page 18-19. Public Domain, Also at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61698079





Below are photos of Joseph and his younger full brother William Branch Sayers, who also served in the 13th State Legislature, as a House member representing the then-27th District (Gonzales, Caldwell, and Guadalupe counties).


Above:  Joseph Draper Sayers, representing the 26th Texas Senatorial District, and
Below:  William Branch Sayers, representing the 40th Texas House District.
Both as pictured in the Pictorial Monogram of the State Government of Texas 1873 (DeGolyer Library, SMU, Lawrence T. Jones III Collection), also on display on the ground floor elevator vestibule, east wall, of the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas.



William was also in the Texas House for the 14th Legislature, January 1874 to April 1876, when Hays County was also part of his district.  William was born February 22, 1843, in Canton, Mississippi, the second child of Dr. David Sayers and the last for his mother Mary Thomas Peete Sayers.  Like his brother, William attended the Bastrop Military Institute, served in the Confederate Army (in Terry's Texas Rangers), also attained the rank of major, and studied law after the Civil War.

William settled in Gonzales, and opened the banking firm Miller & Sayers with his law partner James Francis Miller in 1868.   He married Adele Lockhart in 1874.  They had two sons, James Draper Sayers Jr. (1875-1930), who attended the US Naval Academy and was married but childless, and William Branch Sayers Jr. (1876-1919), who had two sons who never married nor had children.  One of those sons likely left the following four photos found in an estate sale.

William Branch Sayers died on February 24, 1898, and is buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Gonzales, Texas, along with his wife, their two sons, and their sons' wives.


Above:  William Branch Sayers (1843-1898), taken at the studios of William H. Curtis in San Antonio, Texas, between 1892 and 1898.

Below:  Adele Lockart (Mrs. William Branch) Sayers (1853-1913), taken at the Clarence Curtis Deane studio at 306 Preston in Houston, Texas, between 1884 and 1888.  Her maternal uncles were Francis Richard LubbockGovernor of Texas, 1861-63, and Thomas Saltus Lubbock, for whom the Texas city and county were named



Above:  William Branch Sayers Jr. (1876-1919), while attending the Virginia Military Institute in Lexingon, Virginia.  He was a member of the Class of 1898 (although he did not graduate) and was manager of the gymnastics team there in 1896-97.

Below:  Henrietta "Etta" Reaves (Mrs. William B. Jr.) Sayers (1885-1968), in a photo taken at the Isaac Newton Rothwell studio at 107 W. Commerce Street in San Antonio, Texas, around 1896-1901.



Governor Sayers had a dormitory (pictured below) at Texas State College for Women (now Texas Woman's University) named for him, as he signed into law the legislation creating the college.  The three-story fireproof brick building with 92 rooms serving 202 students, opened in September 1928 and was demolished in 1982.  A family housing apartment building in the Lowry Woods student housing complex that opened in August 2005 is named Sayers Hall.


TSCW Sayers Hall, photograph, Date Unknown [but between 1928 and 1982]; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth21633/: accessed September 6, 2020), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Denton Public Library.


© Amanda Pape - 2020 - e-mail me!

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