Manor

Manor

(Severin)

Biographies Alf. L. Scott and T. J. Westerberg

A station community of about 1000 inhabitants is situated 12 miles east of Austin in Travis county, and counts its importance from the beginning of the 1870’s. Before this time the area was an uninhabited prairie, with the exception of a few small plantations, where the farming was done by slaves before the war up to the end of the 1860’s. Among these plantations were those of Judge Manors, after whom the city has gotten its name, Bamhart, Rany, Rector, Parsons, Mrs. Townes, Dr. Lee, Nelson Rector, Mrs. Wilbum, Epprights and Melones. The name Manor was not on the map when the Swedes first came to this area, because the name was then “Parsons Seminary”, best known for its boys and girls school. There was not even a store in Manor until 1868, and it got a post office the following year. There was no railroad connection until 1872, when the Houston & Texas Central line was built through the area to Austin.

When the Civil War ended, and slave trade was declared illegal, a new era in Texas history began when the question of workers became one of the days big problems. This condition was a big factor contributing to the large Swedish immigration at the end of the 1860’s. Plantation owners must have workers, and since there was no law which prohibited making contracts and importing foreigners, deals were made to import Swedish workers to this area, and by the year 1867 a large group of immigrants the first Swedes came to Parsons Seminary where they were hired to work for their passage on Mrs. Parson’s plantation. The most important history of the Swedes in Travis County dates from this time. These first Swedes who made contracts to come from Sweden to work on these plantations were “free sons of the North”, who yearned for their own home under their own “soot blackened rooftop.” Their time on these plantations was only as long as necessary to pay for their passage and the price for a pair of oxen and a plow. Land was inexpensive and was mostly bought on credit, and so the hard work of cultivation began which half a century later has transformed the rough prairie to fertile fields, and which has created the beautiful and rich communities of Decker, New Sweden, Manda, Kimbro and Lund around the city of Manor.

In the city we find the Swedish businesses of the Sellstrom’s lumber company, Oscar Andersen’s variety store, the Gustafson Brothers hardware store, Wesley Swenson’s variety store, and Albert Anderson’s grocery store. There are several hundred Swedes living in and around the city. The community is mostly Swedish with a Swedish Lutheran church.

Extracted from: Swedes In Texas In Words and Pictures,

English Translation, 1838 - 1918