Samuel B. Pryor (1816–1866) was the first mayor of

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. After Dallas was granted a town charter on February 2, 1856 by the

Texas legislature The Texas Legislature is the state legislature of the US state of Texas. It is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The state legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. It is a powerful ar ...

, Pryor became the first mayor of Dallas. He led a town government which had six aldermen, a treasurer-recorder, and a constable. He was the first mayor of Dallas, Texas from 1856 to 1857. Born in Brunswick County, Virginia to Philip Pryor and Susan C. Wilkes, his Pryor lineage is traceable through a line of affluent colonial Virginians. His father was counted as a head of household on the 1810 and 1820 Census Presumably his father died before 1830 when his mother was then counted as head of household. Samuel Pryor would have been in his early teens at the time of his father's death. Pryor was in the first graduating class of cadets from the

Virginia Military Institute la, Consilio et Animis (on seal) , mottoeng = "In peace a glorious asset, In war a tower of strength""By courage and wisdom" (on seal) , established = , type = Public senior military college , accreditation = SACS , endowment = $696.8 mill ...

in 1839-1840. He attended Hampden–Sydney College, graduating in 1844. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

, he served in the

Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

. Samuel B. Pryor lived a life of public service. He was a physician. Before serving as mayor, he served as the Court Clerk in Dallas County during 1848-1849.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pryor, Samuel B. 1816 births 1866 deaths Mayors of Dallas People from Lawrenceville, Virginia 19th-century American politicians