Jacobson

the name was changed to Presbyterian College
of South Carolina, with Dr. Jacobs still chair-
man of the trustees. In the last years of his life
his frailness became pronounced, and when in
1911 the Synod of South Carolina unanimously
elected him moderator, he declined to serve, be-
cause of his deafness and poor eyesight. He re-
signed the pastorate of the First Presbyterian
Church but continued to take an active part in
the affairs of the Orphanage until his death. He
had married, Apr. 20, 1865, Mary Jane Dillard
of Laurens County, and to them five children
were born. His will contained an accurate sum-
mary of his life, "I have lived for three great
institutions: the First Presbyterian Church, the
Presbyterian College, and Thornwell Orphan-
age." One of his hobbies was the science of
phonography and he at one time edited a maga-
zine devoted to that subject.

[Thornwell Jacobs, The Life of William Plumer
Jacobs (1918) ; L. R. Lynn, The Story of Thornwell
Orphanage (1924) ; F. D. Jones and W. H. Mills, Hist,
of the Presbyt. Ch. in S. C. Since 1850 (1926); Our
Monthly, Sept.-Dec. 1917; Clinton Chronicle, Sept. 13,
1917; Phonographic Mag.t Oct. 1914, Nov. 1917; The
State (Columbia, S. C.), Sept. n, 1917; Jacobs' di-
aries, 32 vols., in possession of his son, Dr. Thornwell
Jacobs, Oglethorpe Univ., Atlanta, Ga.] W.L.Jo.

JACOBSON, JOHN CHRISTIAN (Apr. 8,
1795-Nov. 24, 1870), Moravian bishop, and edu-
cator, was born at Burkhall near Tondern, Den-
mark. Soon after his birth, his father and mother,
who were missionaries in the Diaspora service
of the Church in Denmark, moved to Skjerne,
where as late as 1913 the people still revered
their memory and referred to their remarkable
work (statement by Bishop Hamilton of the
Moravian Church, Bethlehem, Pa.). The son
was educated in the Moravian boarding school
at Christiansfeld and at the higher school at
Niesky, where he studied theology. Immediate-
ly after graduation he was called to America
where in 1816 he entered Nazareth Hall, the
boys' boarding school at Nazareth, Pa., as a
teacher. Perhaps his chief claim to remembrance
rests upon his work in the field of education. He
was a scholar with a critical knowledge of Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew. He brought to America the
educational ideals of Europe, and he profoundly
influenced the trend of education in the Mora-
vian schools at Nazareth and Bethlehem, Pa.,
and at Salem, N. C. In 1820 he became a pro-
fessor in the Moravian Theological Seminary.
In 1826 he married Lisetta Schnall, also a child
of missionary parents, and in the same year he
was called to the pastorate of the church in Beth-
ania, N. C. For ten years, from 1834 to 1844, he
was principal of the Salem Female Academy, and

Jacoby

was so successful that he was recalled to Naza-
reth Hall as principal.

Jacobson's influence was also felt on church
policy. In 1848 he was a delegate to the General
Synod at Herrnhut, Saxony, and the following
year he was called to Bethlehem as a member of
the Provincial Elders' Conference over which he
presided for eighteen years. This was a period of
growing importance for the American provinces,
inasmuch as the General Synod in 1848 granted
them certain powers of self-government, and in
1857 increased these powers to practical independ-
ence. The result w'as increased importance for
the Moravian College finally located at Bethle-
hem, and enlarged responsibility for the Ameri-
can church leaders, of whom Jacobson was one.
In 1852 he made an extensive tour through the
western part of the northern province, visiting
the congregations and mission stations in Michi-
gan, Wisconsin, Upper Canada, Indiana, and
Ohio (Moravian Church Miscellany for 1852
and 1853). His story of his journey is an inter-
esting commentary on methods oŁ travel as well
as a record of church progress. In 1854 he was
ordained bishop, but he continued from time to
time to give exegetical lectures on the New
Testament at the Moravian College. In 1867 he
retired from active life. Jacobson impressed his
contemporaries not only with his serious schol-
arship, but also with his joy in life, which gave
him sympathy with old and young. Character-
istic, too, w'as his broad-mindedness and lack of
bigotry. He died after three years of retirement,
at the age of seventy-five.

{The Moravian, Dec. i, 1870; W. N. Schwarze,
"History of the Moravian College and Theological
Seminary/* in Trans. Moravian Hist. Soc.t vol. VIII
(1909); J. H. Gewell, Hist, of Wachovia in N. C.
(1902) ; journals of the general and provincial synods;
J. T. Hamilton, A Hist, of the Moravian Church (1895)1
in the Am. Ch. Hist. Ser.f vol. VIII.] D.M.C.

JACOBY, LUDWIG SIGMUND (Oct. 21,
i8i3-June 20,1874), Methodist missionary, was
born at Altstrelitz, Grand Duchy of Mecklen-
burg-Strelitz, Germany, of Jewish stock, the fifth
of the six children of Samuel and Henriette
(Hirsch) Jacoby. He attended the excellent
school of the Altstrelitz ("Altmochum") syna-
gogue, but the narrow circumstances of his par-
ents compelled him at the age of fifteen to enter
the service of A. J. Saalf eld & Company in Ham-
burg. Later he was a drummer for a firm in Leip-
zig. In 1835 he was baptized a Lutheran, but the
change to Christianity involved no inner strug-
gle and no break with his family. In 1838, after
a short stay in Nottingham, England, he emi-
grated to the United States and wandered as far
west as Cincinnati, where he found sufficient em-

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