Today in Texas history: “Mother of Texas” Jane Long

On July 23, 1798, Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long, the “Mother of Texas,” was born.

Wilkinson was nicknamed “Mother of Texas” because she gave birth at Bolivar Peninsula on December 21, 1821. She claimed to be the first English-speaking woman to bear a child in Texas, but U.S. Censuses from 1807-1826 would reveal many children born in Texas to Anglo-American mothers.

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“Mother of Texas”

She married James Long. In 1819 he used his own money to raise an army to try to secure Texas from Spain for the United States. Jane Long later followed him to Texas, where in present-day Galveston she gave birth to her third child, Mary James Long at the Bolivar Peninsula.

In 1822 Long’s husband died after being captured by Mexican forces, but Stephen F. Austin gave her grants of land in Fort Bend and Waller counties. She opened up a boarding house in San Felipe and sold part of her land in Fort Bend County, on which the town of Richmond was built.

Long later moved to Richmond, where she opened another boarding house and started a plantation nearby. She died on December 30, 1880 in Fort Bend County, and in 1936 a centennial marker was erected in her honor.

Folklore and family tradition hold that Jane was courted by Texas’ leading men, including Ben Milam, Sam Houston, and Mirabeau B. Lamar, but that she refused them all. Her history depends primarily on her own story told to Lamar about 1837, when he was gathering material for a history of Texas. During World War II the United States liberty ship SS Jane Long was named in her honor.

Source: Texas State Historical Association

Mackenzie Warren