Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long

Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long (1798–1880) is considered to be the “Mother of Texas.”

Jane Herbert Wilkinson was born July 23, 1798 in Charles County, Maryland, the niece of General James Wilkinson. Around 1811, her family moved from Maryland to Natchez, in the Mississippi Territory. There she married James Long, a doctor and a native of Virginia. In 1819, James Long used his own money to raise an army to secure Texas from Spain for the United States. Jane Long later followed him to Texas. On December 21, 1821, at Bolivar Peninsula near present-day Galveston, she gave birth to her third child, Mary James Long. It is often claimed that this was the first child born to an English-speaking woman in Texas, and while it is likely there had been earlier births, Long came to be known as the "Mother of Texas.”

In 1822 Long's husband died after being captured by Mexican forces. Stephen F. Austin gave her grants of land in Fort Bend and Waller counties, but instead of farming, she opened a boarding house in San Felipe, Texas. She 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 a boarding house and started a plantation nearby. She died on December 30, 1880 in Fort Bend County, and a marker was erected in her honor in 1936. Jane Long Elementary School located in Freeport, Texas in the Brazosport Independent School District is also named for her.