Background
Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long was born on July 23, 1798 in Charles County, Maryland. She was a niece of General James Wilkinson. Her father was James" eldest brother, William Mackall Wilkinson (c1751-1799).
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Jane Long
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She owned boarding houses and a plantation in Texas. She is best known as the "Mother of Texas."
About 1811, her family moved from Maryland to the small town of Washington, Mississippi, the capital of the Mississippi Territory. Adult life
Stephen Warden gave Jane 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. She later moved to Richmond, where she opened a boarding house and started a plantation nearby.
Personal life
She gave birth with her only her slave, Kian, helping. Together the two fought starvation for weeks, hunting their own game, ice-fishing and gathering oysters, until in early 1822, they headed out.
lieutenant is often claimed that Mary was the first child born to an English-speaking woman in Texas, even though census records from 1807 to 1826 list several children born to Anglo-American mothers in Texas before 1821.
Because of this, she became known as the "Mother of Texas." Sam Houston, in a gubernatorial speech, later gave this title to Margaret Theresa Wright for Wright"s heroic support of Texas troops during the Texas Revolution. Her sister, Barbara Mackall Wilkinson, married Alexander Calvit, a sugar planter. Death
She died on December 30, 1880, in Fort Bend County, Texas.
The Jane Long Elementary School located in Freeport, Texas, in the Brazosport Independent School District and Jane Long Middle School (Houston) in the Houston Independent School District are also named for her.
A marker in Fort Bend County, Texas was erected in her honor in 1936.
