Mrs. Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long
Richmond, Fort Bend County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of the home of the pioneer of Anglo-American women in Texas Mrs. Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long (1789-1880) Wife of Dr. James Long, leader of an expedition in 1819 whose purpose was to free Texas from Spanish rule Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long, often remembered as a pioneer among Anglo-American women in Texas, made her home on this Fort Bend County site. She was the wife of Dr. James Long, who led an 1819 expedition aimed at freeing Texas from Spanish rule. Living through the turbulent years when Texas passed from Spanish to Mexican to independent hands, she became a lasting symbol of frontier endurance, memorialized here by the State of Texas in 1936.
Why it matters
Her life bridges the earliest Anglo settlement of Texas and its revolutionary struggles, honoring the often-overlooked role of women on the contested southwestern frontier.
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Related people
- · Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long
- · Dr. James Long
Related events
- · James Long expedition, 1819
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Jane Wilkinson Long earned the name "Mother of Texas" through the winter of 1821, when—stranded at Point Bolivar with her small daughter and an enslaved girl named Kian while her husband's filibustering expedition marched into Mexico—she gave birth in a snowstorm and then rose to gather food and firewood for her family. In the decades that followed she ran two of the most famous boarding houses of the colonial and republic eras, hosting William B. Travis, Sam Houston, and Mirabeau B. Lamar. On this Richmond site she opened a house in 1837 that became a hub of Texas social and political life until her plantation prospered in the 1840s.
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