Biography - Luther Jacobs
LUTHER F. JACOBS was born in West Fork Hundred, Sussex County, Del., February 27, 1832. He is a son of Stansbury Jacobs, of the same place, who was born about 1800. The latter was a son of Curtis Jacobs, who was a native of Virginia and a farmer by occupation. He removed from Virginia to Delaware when a young man. He was married twice and by the two wives had several children, of whom Stansbury was the first of three sons. His brothers were Madison and Curtis. Curtis Jacobs was a wealthy planter in his day and owned numerous slaves. He emancipated many of these slaves from time to time, but while they were slaves he was firm and stern with them. He died on his plantation at the age of eighty years.
Stansbury Jacobs married Henrietta White, of Kent County, Del. He was a prosperous farmer and slave-owner, having from eighteen to twenty negroes. They had six sons and one daughter, of whom Luther F. was the sixth child and fifth son. Their children were as follows: John Wesley, who died in Delaware a single man; William, who died in that State in 1875; George, who died at the old home in Delaware at the age of twenty-one; Sally W., now living in Washington, D. C., the widow of Judge Edward L. Weld, of Delaware; Curtis, who died at Delaware in 1888, a single man; Luther F.; and Romulus E., a farmer of Madison County, Ill. The father of these children died on his plantation of twenty-one hundred acres, in his fifty-eighth year. At the time of death he owned some twenty slaves. His widow survived him about twenty-three years, and died in 1880, aged eighty-five years.
Luther F. Jacobs was reared at home and was well educated in the district schools, in an academy and in Delaware College, taking the classical course of instruction. At the age of twenty-one he left home and removed to Indiana, remaining there one year, and then coming to Illinois, where he remained until the spring of 1861. During this time he was engaged in teaching school and in buying grain. On September 17, 1861, he was sworn in as a member of Company H, Thirty-first Illinois Infantry, at Cairo, under Capt. Greenlee. His first experience in battle was on November 7, at Belmont. He was in the Jefferson barracks two months on account of diarrhea and paralysis. Otherwise, he was on duty all the time he was in the service, three years, being neither seriously wounded nor taken prisoner. During a portion of the time he was often detailed as clerk and scribe at regimental headquarters, in which position he was useful and efficient. He came home with health impaired from exposure and two wounds, one in the head, the other in the hip. He came through Vienna on his way to J. S. Whittenberg's, where he went for a certificate to teach school, and afterward taught for six months.
In February, 1865, Mr. Jacobs married Frances H. Short, of Johnson County, daughter of Benjamin Short. He continued teaching in Illinois, in four or five different counties. He and his wife settled down at their present home in 1872, where he had bought eighty acres of land three miles west of Vienna, this eighty acres being a dower to his wife, which he obtained through the courts. He has added to this original eighty acres from time to time, until now he owns two hundred and twenty acres in three farms, with a house on each. He has a fine fruit farm, having twenty acres of orchard, both old and new. He is about to make fruit culture a specialty, having apples, peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, grapes, and all kinds of small fruits. He has, so far, been carrying on general farming and growing large crops of wheat and corn, having sometimes raised as much as fifteen hundred bushels of wheat in one year. He keeps a few good horses and mules, cattle, sheep and hogs, raising the latter for the market. Mr. Jacobs has three sons and three daughters, ranging from twenty-two years of age down to three, all of them at home. Charles has a wife and one daughter and resides on one of the three farms. He also owns a farm adjoining. Mr. Jacobs has served as Supervisor of the township. Politically, he is a Democrat, and religiously he reserves the right to think and believe for himself.
Extracted 16 Dec 2016 by Norma Hass from 1893 Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope, and Hardin Counties, Illinois, pages 544-545.
