Source Industrial Wellsburg 1899 by Ralph S. Kerr
John Gabriel Jacob.

      The Wellsburg Herald has had as editorial writer one man continuously from December 9, 1848, until the present time, a little over 50 years, perhaps as long a term of service as that of any living editor in the United States. The Herald was established two years previously by J. A. Metcalf and James A. Smith, or on December 9, 1847, making it the second paper in point of age in West Virginia. The subject of our sketch, John Gabriel Jacob, graduated from Washington College in October, 1847, in a class that has singularly distinguished tself. One year after graduation he bought Mr. Metcalf's interest in The Herald, his father, Samuel Jacob, of the National Bank, going his security. The 22 year old editor had the same strong convictions on moral and political questions at the beginning of his career that have characterized his writings ever since. He was a Whig and opposed to human slavery, although his near relatives owned slaves. His writings were strong and to the point and won for him the cordial dislike of men of different ways of thinking, who nevertheless never questioned his honesty of purpose. On the other hand, the people in Brooke and Hancock counties who approved his sentiments were knit to him by the very strongest ties, and though the vast majority of them have passed into eternity there are still on the Herald books those who have read his writings continuously for fifty years.

     Being within slave territory, his terse articles advocating the emancipation of the negroes were widely copied and commented on, both within and without the State of Virginia, and perhaps had more to do with crystallizing sentiment in this section than is generally supposed. As early as 1852 Judge George W. Thompson, of the circuit Court, in his charge to the grand jury suggested that an indictment be found against The Herald for incendiary utterances against the State laws upholding slavery and forbidding that negroes be taught to read and write. The jury would not indict.

     In 1859 he bought out the interest of J. A. Smith and became sole owner. In 1860 he went to the Republican National Convention at Chicago as a delegate, and it was largely the votes of Virginia in that convention that led to the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for his first term as President. All through the stirring days of the war he took an active part for the Union, and although he could not enlist on account of near-sightedness his services were considered by those directing affairs all of more value in mouIding Union sentiment than if he had been at the front with a musket.

     He took an active part in advocating and sustaining the public school system in its infancy, and was for a number of terms a member of the local Board of Education. With this exception and one term as Circuit Clerk he has never sought or held public office. This is explained not only by his aversion to office-holding and its consequent toadyism, but by a reticent and blunt manner that he would not have changed if he could have done so for actions that had the semblance of insincerity.

      Notwithstanding the sometimes apparently cutting editorials regarding politicians or public wrongs his sentiments and actions toward opponents as private citizens have been uniformly liberal and just. His life of 73 years has been spent mostly in the seclusion of his home. He has been an industrious, intelligent, God-fearing man, whose every act will bear the closest scrutiny, and whose life we hope may be lengthened out at least to that of his lamented father, who with clean hands and a pure heart entered into rest in 1885, aged 84 years.