He went on to become the second mayor of Austin in the fall of 1840 when Edwin Waller stepped down. During his brief tenure in the winter of 1840, Ward created eight districts with a representative from each serving on the city council. He also coordinated the sale of town lots. Austin Ward agreed to serve as postmaster to the city of Houston in April 1839, just one day before the Texas government announced its plan to move the capital to Waterloo, later renamed as Austin. He remained on the job until October, but followed the Texas government to Austin around that time. Ward suffered another great personal tragedy on March 2, 1840 during a celebration of Texas Independence Day. He and a comrade from the New Orleans Greys, John D. McLeod, agreed to fire the old six-pound cannon as part of the day's festivities. The cannon fired by accident just as Ward was ramming the muzzle, causing severe damage to his right side. His right arm was amputated to save his life. After about month of bed rest, Ward was out in public, and by the end of the summer, the town of Austin elected him as its second mayor. Despite losing both a leg and an arm to cannon charges, he honored the re-election of Sam Houston in 1841 by firing another artillery piece. In January 1841 he was appointed the second commissioner of the General Land Office, succeeding John P. Borden. Ward presided over the land office until 1848. Throughout his term, he struggled to make sense of the often unclear and tangled land laws as well as the nightmare of conflicting surveys and untrained surveyors. The commissioner also had to combat rampant fraud and wrestle with dishonorable land speculators. Early on, Ward discovered that the job of land commissioner could be quite hazardous to one's health. The following year Ward was a party to the Texas Archive War. The Texas government evacuated to Houston in response to the Mexican invasion of Texas and the capture of San Antonio. Residents of Austin refused to release the government archives, and Ward worked with President Sam Houston to move the archives from Austin. For his trouble, Ward was among those fired upon by Angelina Eberly. During the state elections in 1848, George W. Smyth defeated Ward in the race for land commissioner. After his defeat, Ward served as the