DAINGERFIELD, WILLIAM HENRY (1808-1878). William Henry Daingerfield, legislator, diplomat, and early San Antonio mayor, was born in 1808 at Alexandria, Virginia. He attended the University of Virginia in 1828-29, farmed in Maryland, and later practiced law. In October 1837, he moved to San Antonio, Texas, where he was elected mayor in 1838. He became chief justice of Bexar County the same year and in 1839 was appointed commissary of purchases of the Army of the Republic of Texas.^qv He was senator from Bexar County in the Fifth and Sixth congresses of Texas, 1840-42, but resigned on February 5, 1842, to become secretary of the treasury. In February 1844, he became Texas chargé d'affaires in the Netherlands, where he remained until annexation.^qv His letter book kept on missions to the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Hanse towns is in the Texas State Archives.^qv In 1860 Daingerfield moved to the District of Columbia and opened a law office near Washington. He died in September 1878 at his residence in Prince George County, Maryland.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Biographies of Leading Texans (MS, Texas State Archives, Austin). Galveston Daily News, October 2, 1878. Galveston News, September 10, 1878. Galveston National Intelligencer, August 7, 1857. New Orleans Daily Picayune, November 7, 1843. Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832-1845 (Austin: Book Exchange, 1941).

Redding S. Sugg, Jr.