Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long Biography

Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long

Around 1811 Jane Wilkinson's family moved to the Mississippi Territory from Maryland. She married a doctor, James Long, a native Virginian. In 1819 Long used his own money to raise an army to secure Texas for the United States. Jane Long later followed him to Texas. On Dec. 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 Austin gave her grants of land in Fort Bend and Waller counties, but instead of farming, she opened a boarding house in San Felipe. 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 in Fort Bend County, and a marker was erected in her honor in 1936.