by Brenda Beust Smith
Big plans are underway for the 2012 Jane Long Festival Oct. 13 at Fort Travis, where all activities take place just past the Bolivar Ferry Landing at Fort Travis State Park, on the historic military bluff that overlooks the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Island with a steady maritime parade of enormous international freighters on their way to the Galveston and Houston ship channels.

Was there ever a more beautiful, more exciting site for a festival? Certainly a fitting setting for someone as inspirational as Jane Long to the stalwart folks of Bolivar Peninsula in their amazing recovery from the devastation caused by Hurricane Ike. She always was their hero…and now more so than ever.

For this reason, most exciting this year will be the dedication of the Jane Long Memorial, a brand new Gateway project, consisting of a monument, historical markers and three flagpoles flying the U.S. Flag, Texas Flag and the wonderful Jane Long Petticoat Flag.

Don’t know what the Petticoat Flag is? Then you don’t know all you should about Jane, the Mother of Texas, and the incredible years she spent on Bolivar Peninsula, providing inspiration for our recovery from Hurricane Ike. Two historical markers will detail both the history of the peninsula and of Jane Long and her amazing contributions to the fight for Texas independence.

The pavilion-like area at the entrance to Fort Travis, right off Hwy. 87 will include benches and engraved memorial pavers. The Galveston County Road & Bridge Dept. is working on the Memorial at this time.

The Jane Long Society of the Bolivar Peninsula Cultural Foundation is planning to sell engraved pavers for the area as a fundraiser. The initial offering will be at a soon-to-be-announced reduced donation for the benefit of peninsula residents. To receive information about this early-purchase special, email Brenda Beust Smith at lazy [email protected].

As usual, the always-sold-out Jane Long Festival Lecture Series will offer outstanding speakers from the area looking at various aspects of Jane Long’s remarkable story and life on Bolivar Peninsula. Details on the lecture series can be found at http://www.janelongfestival.org.

Although the popular “Pirates & Petticoats” play about Jane Long’s experiences on Bolivar Peninsula will now be held every other year (next in 2013), all the characters will be on hand strolling around the festival ready to answer questions about this exciting period.

The stage won’t be empty, however! A nonstop entertainment schedule will feature the famous “Cowboy Poet” Bob Kahla, live music, Zumba dancers and, of course, an appearance by “Jane Long” herself.

Entertaining folks all day off stage will be numerous authentic re-enactments by military groups and exciting “shoot-outs” — you can participate!

A highlight this year: actual tours of the still-standing, still-thrilling bunkers at Fort Travis, the site of which has been a military stronghold since 1816. It was a key point during the decades leading up to the Texas Revolution (when Jane lived on Bolivar) and it was utilized during WWI & WWII.

An expanded presentation of booths and exhibits will include many local artists, craftsmen (especially jewelry-makers), authors and photographers with their creations for sale. Handcrafted gift items and homemade prepared foods will popular, along with the silent auction, raffle and a chance to have your photos taken in old-timey costumes. A separate Children’s Area will delight with toys, rides, games and prizes.

Traditional Bolivar foods will be available including crab nachos, gumbo, boudain, red beans and rice along with, of course, more traditional fare such as hotdogs, sausage, regular nachos, etc.

Admission and parking are free. Free transportation available from parking area to festival. Details: http://www.janelongfestival.org.

By now you’re probably wonder: So, who was Jane Long? Most Texans know her name well. She is, after all, our “Mother” But amazingly little is known about Jane Long, the Mother of Texas, other than the obligatory paragraph in almost every Texas history textbook

We know she was left all alone with her daughter and another very young girl on Bolivar Peninsula, just across the bay from Galveston Island, during one of the coldest winters on record to that date.

We know she was pregnant and that her husband, James Long, took off with most of his soldiers (the rest quickly deserted) to incite Texas settlers into declaring their freedom from Spain and establishing the Republic of Texas.

We know that she was so insanely in love with this man that she agreed to being abandoned on Bolivar Peninsula, she fought off the Karankawa Indians, and she refused to leave for two years (even bearing a baby with no other adult around during a horrendous winter) — all because she’d promised him she’d be there when he got back.

What most of us don’t know is that:

• Jane was the one who dined (sans husband) with the pirate Jean Lafitte in an attempt entice him to finance James Long’s obsession.
• Jane designed a flag featuring what she called “the lone star” for her husband’s troops to carry — perhaps the first “lone star” flag used in Texas.
• To assist Stephen F. Austin, Jane entertained Mexican officials, representatives of Spain, at her Brazoria-area hotel.
• Jane organized a ball at her hotel when Stephen F. Austin was freed from a Mexican prison. At this ball, Austin gave his first speech calling for Texas Independence from Mexico, setting off the Texas Revolution.
• Jane was the one who saved the papers of Mirabeau B. Lamar (later the second President of the Republic of Texas) — including his original history of Texas.

She saved personal effects of other notable Texas fighters when she left Brazoria and fled back to Bolivar just ahead of the Mexican Army during the famous “Runaway Scape.”

Jane was said to have been courted by many of the revolutionaries, including Travis, Austin, Ben Milam, Sam Houston and, particularly, Mirabeau B Lamar. But she never remarried, perhaps because her love for James Long was so great.

Hopefully, the folks on Bolivar Peninsula are making Jane more of a household word.

They are gearing up for 2012’s 4th annual Jane Long Festival (second Saturday in October) and this time they have gone statewide in their campaign to put the “Mother of Texas” into a much bigger spotlight.

Already, members of the Jane Long Society

Are working to have Texas State Highway 87 — which runs the length of the Bolivar Peninsula from the Bolivar Ferry Landing to High Island — renamed the Jane Long Highway.
Presented a portrait of Jane Long to the State Capital in Austin where it now hangs with other distinguished Texans.
Helped institute a complete extensive improvements at historic Fort Travis, which now includes an historical Jane Long Pavilion. The dedication will be at 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, right before the festival opens.

(Fun note: Because Texas was an independent republic, the Texas Flag is the only state flag allowed to fly at the same height as the U.S. Flag— and then ONLY if it is the only state flag being flown alongside the U.S. Flag. At the Jane Long Pavilion, the red Jane Long Petticoat Flag flies with these two — all three at the same height, because the Jane Long Petticoat Flag is not a state flag!)

Margo Johnson and other Bolivar Jane Long supporters credit the late author A. Pat Daniels for helping to spark such active interest in this historic woman. The Doyle family is responsible for getting Highway 87 renamed. And the Doyle Foundation has donated generously to the Bolivar campaign organized by the Jane Long Society as have numerous other state departments and local organizations and individuals.

The Jane Long Memorial is very much a tribute to those who have worked so hard to rebuild Bolivar Peninsula after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ike. Jane Long — all agree — was definitely an inspiration in this effort.

The Jane Long Society’s mission is to keep that spirit of survival alive and to also bring attention to Fort Travis which itself suffered severe damage to the historic bunkers and other fortifications during Hurricane Ike.

“Jane Long was a revolutionary, just like the famous male Texas heroes we learned about in school,” explains Helen Mooty, of the Galveston County Historical Commission.

“She was one of the most politically powerful women in Texas in the early 1800s, a time when women were supposed to give birth and do little else. That is the truly amazing thing about Jane Long.“

Jane, a former debutante from Mississippi, was only 18 when she arrived with her husband, General James Long, on Bolivar Peninsula. The first known actual fort on that site was an earthen levee constructed by the Spanish explorer Frances Xavier Mina in 1816, only a few years before General Long and Jane arrived in his quest to free Texas from Spanish rule.

Jane’s abandonment (as many today would see it) on Bolivar Peninsula was a experience almost impossible to imagine today.

The winter was said to have been so cold, the waters between Galveston and Bolivar froze over so solidly animals such as bears were able to walk across.

It wasn’t until Jane received reliable word that her husband had been killed in Mexico that Jane agreed to leave the peninsula.

After his death, she moved to Brazoria, Texas, where she organized meetings of the Texas revolutionaries Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, Mirabeau Lamar, and others. Her boarding house was also used by Mexican troops, whom she wined and dined to gather enemy secrets.

After Texas became a Republic, Jane moved to Richmond, where she had a plantation and lived until 1880.

Much is made of the fact that Jane — alone with only the two young girls to help — gave birth during that incredible stay on Bolivar Peninsula, certainly an amazing feat.

But her strength and influence continued long afterwards, thrusting her into a noteworthy role — one not common to women of that day — in the whirlwind of forces that resulted in the birth of the “Lone Star State.”

She is, indeed, the “Mother of Texas.”

As part of its recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Ike, the Bolivar Peninsula has instituted an annual Jane Long Festival on the incredibly picturesque point of the peninsula — with sweeping views of the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston Bay, Galveston Island, and huge freighters heading to and from the Houston Ship Channel.

The 2012 fourth annual Jane Long Festival will again attract a colorfully costumed crowd and will include wandering characters from a every-other-year-presented play about Jane and the pirate Jean Lafitte. Characters will gladly explain their “roles” to festival visitors.

A broad-spectrum lecture series accompanies the festival, calling on statewide experts on both Jane and referencing the many notable Texas Revolutionaries with whom Jane later collaborated as the Lone Star State became a reality: Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and William Travis, to name just a few.

Details on the 2012 Jane Long Festival (Oct. 13, 2012) and its historical lecture series, can be found on Jane Long Society’s website: janelongfestival.org.