Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long
Port Bolivar, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
JANE HERBERT WILKINSON LONG (JULY 23, 1798 – DECEMBER 30, 1880) BORN IN CHARLES COUNTY, MARYLAND, JANE HERBERT WILKINSON LONG WAS A TEXAS PIONEER. SHE MARRIED JAMES LONG IN 1815, AND JOINED HIM IN TEXAS DURING HIS MILITARY INVASION OF THE THEN-SPANISH COLONY, SETTLING IN NACOGDOCHES. THE OCCUPATION WAS UNSUCCESSFUL, BUT THE LONGS RETURNED WITH SUPPORTERS IN 1820, BUILDING A FORT ON THE BOLIVAR PENINSULA AT THE EASTERN ENTRANCE TO GALVESTON BAY. JAMES LONG LEFT FOR LA BAHÍA TO GAIN SUPPORT, BUT WAS CAPTURED AND IMPRISONED IN MONTERREY. MEANWHILE, JANE, ALONG WITH HER DAUGHTER ANN AND SLAVE KIAN, REMAINED AT THE FORT, FACING FRIGID WINTER TEMPERATURES, LACK OF FOOD AND SUPPLIES, AND DANGER FROM THE NATIVE KARANKAWAS. IN THE MIDST OF THESE DIFFICULTIES, JANE LONG GAVE BIRTH TO A CHILD, LEADING TO HER HONORARY DESIGNATION AS “MOTHER OF TEXAS.” AFTER HEARING OF HER HUSBAND’S DEATH, LONG LED HER FAMILY TO SETTLE AT VARIOUS PLACES ALONG THE SAN JACINTO RIVER AND IN SAN ANTONIO. THE FAMILY MOVED TO BE WITH KIN IN LOUISIANA AND MISSISSIPPI IN 1823, BUT RETURNED IN 1825 AS PART OF STEPHEN F. AUSTIN’S FIRST COLONY, RECEIVING HER OWN HEADRIGHT OF LAND, USUALLY ACCORDED ONLY TO A MALE HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD. SHE SETTLED IN SAN FELIPE DE AUSTIN. DURING THE TEXAS WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE, LONG OPENED HER BOARDING HOUSE FOR RALLIES AND MEETINGS, WHILE ALSO GATHERING INFORMATION FROM MEXICAN OFFICERS AND STORING ARMS AND MUNITIONS. SHE FLED WITH OTHERS DURING THE RUNAWAY SCRAPE. AFTER THE WAR. IN HER REMAINING YEARS, LONG OPERATED A BOARDING HOUSE AND PLANTATION IN FORT BEND COUNTY. TODAY, JANE HERBERT WILKINSON LONG CONTINUES TO BE REMEMBERED AS A TEXAS PATRIOT AND A PIONEER OF THE TEXAS FRONTIER. (2010)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Maryland in 1798, Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long followed her husband into the dangerous filibustering expeditions that sought to wrest Texas from Spain. Left to hold a fort on the Bolivar Peninsula through a brutal winter with her daughter and an enslaved woman named Kian, she gave birth there amid hunger and danger — the episode that earned her the honorary title "Mother of Texas." She later received her own headright of land in Austin's colony, unusual for a woman, and opened her San Felipe boarding house to the rallies and intrigue of the Texas Revolution.
Why it matters
Jane Long's life traces the whole arc of Anglo settlement in Texas, and her independent landholding and wartime activism mark a rare place for a woman at the founding of the Republic.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long was born in Charles County, Maryland, in 1798, into a young United States that had barely finished defining its own borders. When she married James Long in 1815, the vast country to the southwest — Texas — was still a Spanish colony, a frontier of enormous risk and enormous ambition.
The years that followed belonged to the age of the filibusters: private, often illegal military expeditions by Anglo-Americans who dreamed of prying Texas loose from Spain. It was a lawless, dangerous frontier, thinly held and fiercely contested, where a settler's survival could hinge on weather, supply, and the disposition of Native peoples who had lived there long before.
Jane Long's long life — she died in 1880 — stretched from that Spanish-colonial frontier all the way through the Texas Revolution and into the era of the established state. Few individual lives track the transformation of Texas so completely, from contested borderland to Republic to part of the Union.
People & events
Jane followed her husband into his military ventures, joining him in Texas during his invasion of the Spanish colony and settling for a time at Nacogdoches. That first occupation failed, but the Longs returned in 1820 with supporters and built a fort on the Bolivar Peninsula, at the eastern entrance to Galveston Bay. When James left for La Bahía to gather support, he was captured and imprisoned far away in Monterrey.
What happened next is the heart of her legend. Jane remained at the fort with her daughter Ann and an enslaved woman named Kian, enduring a brutal winter with little food, few supplies, and constant danger from the Karankawas. In the midst of that ordeal she gave birth to a child — the episode that earned her the honorary title "Mother of Texas." Only later did word reach her that her husband had died.
After years of moving — along the San Jacinto River, in San Antonio, and among kin in Louisiana and Mississippi — she returned in 1825 as part of Stephen F. Austin's first colony and received her own headright of land, a grant usually reserved for a male head of household. Settling at San Felipe de Austin, she later opened her boarding house to the rallies and meetings of the Texas War for Independence, gathered information from Mexican officers, and stored arms and munitions, before fleeing with countless others in the Runaway Scrape.
Its place in the American story
Jane Long's biography is, in effect, the whole arc of Anglo settlement in Texas compressed into a single life. She was present for the filibustering gambles against Spain, for the founding of Austin's colony, and for the revolution that created an independent republic — the successive chapters that carried Texas from Spanish territory toward the United States.
Her place in that story is remarkable precisely because of who she was. In an era when land and public roles were reserved almost entirely for men, she received her own headright and later ran her own boarding house and plantation. That independent standing, unusual for a woman of her time, marks a rare and significant exception at the very founding of the Republic.
Her wartime activism sharpens the point. Turning her boarding house into a gathering place for the independence cause, quietly collecting intelligence, and safeguarding arms, she was not a bystander to the founding events but a participant in them — a reminder that the making of Texas depended on women whose contributions the traditional narrative too often left in the margins.
If you visit
You'll find this marker at Port Bolivar, out on the Bolivar Peninsula at the eastern mouth of Galveston Bay — a spot most travelers reach by the ferry across the water, which is itself a memorable part of the journey. The approach across the bay sets the mood: this is a place shaped by water, weather, and isolation.
Stand and look out toward the bay and try to feel what that first winter must have been like. Jane Long held a fort on this exposed peninsula through frigid cold, hunger, and danger, with only her young daughter and Kian for company. The openness and the wind that can sweep across the point make the hardship of her ordeal easy to imagine.
The marker fits naturally into a wider exploration of the Galveston Bay area's early history, and it makes a fine reason to pause on the peninsula rather than simply passing through. Give yourself a few minutes here to consider a woman remembered as the "Mother of Texas," whose fortitude on this very shoreline became one of the founding legends of the state.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long
- · James Long
- · Stephen F. Austin
Related events
- · Texas Revolution
- · Runaway Scrape
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Point Bolivar
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Point Bolivar served as headquarters for James Long's 1819 expedition, a bold attempt to wrest Texas from Spanish rule, and was named for the South American liberator Simón Bolívar. Here Mrs. Long and a small band waited until word arrived in 1822 that her husband had died. Years later the Republic of Texas raised a lighthouse on the point.
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