BATTLE, MILLS M. (1800-1856). Mills M. Battle, early settler and public official, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on February 20, 1800. He was a partner of M. Berry and John Williams, Sr.,^qqv as one of the families of the Old Three Hundred. One sitio of land now in Matagorda County was deeded to them by the Baron de Bastrop on August 10, 1824. Battle was a carpenter and contractor in business with Berry at San Felipe de Austin, where he voted in alcalde elections as early as December 1824, and where he himself was alcalde in 1827. The census of March 1826 listed him as a married man with a small daughter. His wife, Mary, died before August 26, 1837. Battle was president of the election at Stafford's Prairie to choose delegates to the Convention of 1836. He was justice of the peace of Fort Bend County in 1837-38 and in 1839 was deputy clerk of the probate court. He met with other citizens of the county at Richmond in 1839 to appoint delegates to a railroad meeting at Fayetteville. Battle married Mrs. Treasy Springer on December 29, 1842. He was notary public in Fort Bend County in 1843 and county clerk in 1851. He participated in meetings to nominate Sam Houston for president in 1841 and James B. Miller for governor in 1847. Battle died at Richmond on January 15, 1856, and is buried in Morton cemetery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eugene C. Barker, ed., The Austin Papers (3 vols., Washington: GPO, 1924-28 Eugene C. Barker, ed., "Minutes of the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe de Austin, 1828-1832," 12 parts, Southwestern Historical Quarterly 21-24 (January 1918-October 1920 Telegraph and Texas Register, August 26, 1837, April 14, 1838. Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence (Salado, Texas: Anson Jones, 1944; rpt. 1959 "Reminiscences of Mrs. Dilue Harris," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 4, 7 (October 1900, January 1901, January 1904 Andrew Jackson Sowell, History of Fort Bend County (Houston: Coyle, 1904; rpt, Richmond, Texas: Fort Bend County Historical Museum, 1974 Texas Gazette, October 9, November 6, 1830.