Jane Long

Many people have claimed the title of "witness to history," but in Texas, Jane Long may have one of the best claims to such a distinction. She observed or participated in most of the state's formative events from the Spanish colonial era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. Jane Long was, to borrow a phrase, "present at the creation," and earned her legendary title as the "Mother of Texas."

Jane Herbert Wilkinson was born 1798 in Maryland, to William Mackall and Anne Herbert Wilkinson. She moved to Mississippi while still a child and, after the death of both parents in 1813, lived with an older sister and her husband on a Natchez plantation. Jane soon caught the eye of Dr. James Long, a military surgeon, and the two married in May 1815.

Four years later, James Long led a filibustering expedition from Natchez to conquer Texas, in his mind wrongly omitted from the United States under the terms of the Adams-Onis Treaty. Jane followed with two young daughters and a black servant, Kian, meeting her husband near Nacogdoches briefly before both traveled to Fort Las Casas, on Bolivar Peninsula, to continue the crusade for Texas. James Long was captured by Spanish forces at San Antonio in 1821, then taken to Mexico City, where he was shot in April 1822.

Jane Long remained at Bolivar with Kian, giving birth to a third daughter in December 1821. Joining a party of immigrants headed up the San Jacinto River in 1822, she soon learned that her husband had been killed. But she determined to make a life for herself in Texas. In 1824 Jane received title to a league of land in Fort Bend County and another tract in Waller County, both parcels granted by empresario Stephen F. Austin.

In 1832 Jane purchased a boarding house in Brazoria, and operated it for five years, during the height of the Texas independence movement. After independence, she then opened another hostel in the town of Richmond, which had been built on one of her original grants, and ran it and a plantation south of town simultaneously. By 1861 and Texas' secession from the Union, Jane Long had established herself as an astute businesswoman. Like many Texas landowners of the time, she owned slaves-nineteen at the outbreak of the Civil War. She tried to keep her land, using tenant labor after the conflict ended, but with little success.

By 1877 her estate was worth little, and she was being cared for by grandchildren. Jane Long died on December 30, 1888. Legends abound about her life. She claimed, inaccurately, to be the first English-speaking woman to give birth in Texas. She was rumored to have been courted by most of the notable men of the age, including Sam Houston, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and Ben Milam, and insisted that she refused them all. Regardless, she witnessed the tumultuous times of Texas independence, the halcyon days of the Republic, and the tragedy of Civil War and Reconstruction, and, if by virtue of nothing but dedication and perseverance, deserves her title as "Mother of Texas."

Jane Long is buried in the Morton Cemetery in Richmond, Fort Bend County. To get there, take Alt. 90 into Richmond and turn north on 2nd St. to Commerce and west into the cemetery.

For more information about Jane Long, see the New Handbook of Texas. Information about historic Richmond and Fort Bend County can be found at http://www.texas-settlement.org/guide/fortbend. To learn more about East Texas history, contact the East Texas Historical Association at Stephen F. Austin State University or visit the ETHA web site at http://leonardo.sfasu.edu/etha/.