thumb|Texas historical marker for Jane Long located at [[Fort Travis Seashore Park, Bolivar Point]]

Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long (July 23, 1798 – December 30, 1880) was a Texas pioneer. She owned boarding houses and a plantation in Texas. She is best known as the "Mother of Texas."

Biography

Early life

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 (c.1751–1799).

About 1811, her family moved from Maryland to the small town of Washington, Mississippi, the capital of the Mississippi Territory.

Adult life

She moved to Texas with her husband in the 1820s. Throughout a long winter, they and her children struggled as she waited for her husband's return. At one point, several Karankawa Indians appeared, but she fired a cannon each day to make them think there was an army stationed there. Together Jane and Kian fought starvation for weeks, hunting their own game, fishing and gathering oysters, until the news of her husband's death finally reached her during the spring, whereupon they headed out.

Nevertheless because of this, she became known as the "Mother of Texas." Sam Houston later gave the same title to Margaret Theresa Wright during a gubernatorial speech on August 1, 1857, in Wright's hometown of Victoria 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.

Legacy

A number of schools within Texas have been named after the "Mother of Texas." Among them are the following:

  • Jane Long Elementary School located in Freeport in the Brazosport Independent School District
  • Jane Long Elementary School located in Richmond, in the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District
  • Jane Long Intermediate School located in Bryan, in the Bryan Independent School District
  • Jane Long Middle School located in Houston in the Houston Independent School District
  • Long Early Learning Center located in Abilene, in the Abilene Independent School District
  • A marker in Fort Bend County, Texas was erected in her honor in 1936.