Mrs. Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long

Jane Long was called the "Mother of Texas" in her own lifetime, for the daughter she bore on Bolivar Peninsula in December 1821, but she was not, as she claimed, the first English-speaking woman to have a child in Texas: censuses from 1807 to 1826 record earlier births to Anglo-American mothers. Her husband was captured at San Antonio and killed by accident in Mexico City on April 8, 1822. She spent ten months in San Antonio seeking a pension from Governor José Félix Trespalacios, without success, and in 1824 received a league in present Fort Bend County.

What the plaque says

Mrs. Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long 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

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazos Bend State Park — 15 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• The Menil Collection — 23 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 23 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Rothko Chapel — 23 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Site of the Home of Mirabeau B. Lamar — 1.9 mi
• Fort Bend — 1.9 mi
• Wyly Martin — 2.2 mi
• Dismounted Texas Cavalry — 2.3 mi