Governor of West Virginia. He was born in Hampshire County, Virginia (now West Virginia). After graduating from Carlisle College in Dickinson, Pennsylvania, he returned to his home community to teach school and practice law. In 1853 he moved to Missouri to teach at the university there and practice law. At the conclusion of the Civil War, 1865, he returned to his home county in the new state of West Virginia. His skill as an orator in the courtroom soon caught the attention of state Democratic Party officials and he was persuaded to run for political office. He won a seat in the House of Delegates and one year later was his party's nominee for governor. In 1870 he became the first Democratic governor in the history of the young state. He began to aggressively tackle West Virginia's problems. He established an educational structure that laid the groundwork for the state's university system and he developed and implemented a plan to rid the state of its debt. The new Governor also led the fight to successfully establish a new state constitution that would help unite the divide that existed between Union sympathizing counties and Confederate sympathizers which lived in the southern counties. However, his aggressive governing led to a split in the Democratic Party and he lost his party's nomination in an attempt to seek a second term. Undeterred, Jacob ran as an independent and with the backing of the Republican Party was elected to a second term. After his second term the third governor of West Virginia stayed in Wheeling and remained active in politics serving once again in the House of Delegates and as a judicial court judge. In 1888 he retired from politics and five years later, the man credited with helping stabilize and unite the fledgling state died while practicing law in Wheeling.