Thomas William (Peg Leg) Ward (June 20, 1807 – November 25, 1872) was an Irish-born American soldier and politician who served as the second (1840–41), tenth (1853), and nineteenth (1865-1866) mayor of Austin, Texas. He also served as Texas Commissioner of the General Land Office and United States consul to Panama. Early life Thomas William Ward was born in Dublin to Henry and Frances Ward on June 20, 1807. His parents were Anglo-Irish Protestants. Thomas was baptized at St. Mary’s, a church associated with famous persons, including Richard Brinsley Sheridan, John Wesley, Wolfe Tone, and Arthur Guinness. Ward grew up in a large family in a prosperous neighborhood on Moore Street with four older siblings and five younger ones. His father Henry was a successful building contractor. He obtained a commission for construction at Botany Bay, a square at Trinity College. The building contract including the extension of an existing four-story building and adding a new four story-structure to the other side of the square. He started the project in 1813 and finished four years later. Thomas trained as a carpenter and learned the business of contracting under the tutelage of his father. At age twenty, he moved with his family from Dublin to Rathvilly, County Carlow. In 1828 Ward sailed to Quebec before making his way to New Orleans. Though his obituary would later aver that he practiced as an architect and an engineer, his biographer dismisses this and says that he worked in New Orleans as a carpenter. In 1831 he was hired by a builder to work on a major expansion of house, including the addition of a kitchen, and a second story with a garret. This house was still extant at 709-711 Royal Street as recently as 2009. Career Military service On October 13, 1835, Ward attended a meeting on Magazine Street organized by opposition to the regime of Antonio López de Santa Anna. Among those recruiting volunteers for war against Mexico were Adolphus Sterne and Orazio de Santagelo. Enough volunteers signed up that night to create the New Orleans Greys, and Ward joined as a private. The first company embarked on a steamer to Texas via the Red River, and marched from north Texas to San Antonio de Béxar. Ward embarked with his company on the schooner ‘’Columbus’’ which navigated the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the Brazos River,