Yolo County CA Archives Biographies.....Jacobs, James Randolph 1856 - 
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Author: Tom Gregory (1913)

JAMES RANDOLPH JACOBS

    If any residents are entitled to speak with authority concerning the
resources of Yolo county it is those who, born within its limits and educated
within its schools, trained to a knowledge of its soil possibilities and
identified constantly with its landed development, still remain within its
boundaries content to pass life's afternoon amid the scenes endeared to their
earliest recollections. To this class belongs J. R. Jacobs, who is proud of
being a native son of the county as well as a lifelong resident thereof and a
continuous operator of farm lands. He was born on a farm near Knights Landing
October 23, 1856, the son of Isaac W. Jacobs, who is represented on another page
in this volume. He was educated primarily in the schools of Yolo county and
completed his studies in Hesperian College. Subsequently he became an assistant
to his father on the ranch and later was the active manager of the home place,
remaining there until he was thirty-five. He then started to rent other
properties, and later took up farming and leasing tracts in different parts of
the county.

    It was not until 1907 that Mr. Jacobs acquired the tract of forty acres
whose cultivation consumes much of his time and whose improvements bespeak his
skill and thrift. The little farm lies two miles west of Woodland and has a neat
residence built since the present owner acquired the property. Ten acres of the
farm are in alfalfa, which furnishes hay for his dairy herd of nine milch cows.
A large drove of hogs, some Poland-China and others Berkshire, brings the
proprietor a substantial addition to his annual income. Ten acres of the farm
are in a vineyard, which last season produced a large crop of wine grapes. Peach
trees of the Orange Cling variety are in bearing, although only two years old.
Almond trees also began to bear at two years, although entirely without
irrigation. Indeed, it would be difficult to find any ranch as small that equals
the Jacobs farm in point of production and in the annual income from the sale of
the varied crops.

    With a desire to invest further in the fine farming land near Woodland,
during 1910 Mr. Jacobs bought a ranch of eighty acres north of Yolo and here he
gives over the land to the raising of barley. The crop for the past season
averaged eighteen sacks to the acre and the yield undoubtedly will be larger
after the land has been longer under the efficient management of the present
owner. Besides his other grain and stock interests he engages in raising horses
and mules. Eesourceful and energetic, he is of the type of native sons who
contribute largely to local development and form a desirable addition to the
citizenship of the county. In faternal [sic] relations he holds membership with
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. During 1892 he was united in marriage with
Miss Tena Nickell, a native of Yolo county and a graduate of Hesperian College.
They are the parents of four children, Mary E., Anita E., Henry E. and Fay. Mrs.
Jacobs is the daughter of the late James J. Nickell, a native of Kentucky and an
honored pioneer of California, who crossed the plains with horse teams from
Missouri during the summer of 1864 and took up a land claim in Hungry Hollow,
later settling on a ranch near Yolo. For many years he engaged in ranching in
Yolo county and when death ended his activities in 1907 he was deeply mourned as
a man of high principles of honor and unwavering integrity. Mrs. Nickell was
formerly Mary Ann Taylor, also a native of Missouri, and since the death of her
husband she has continued to reside on the old homestead north of Yolo.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

HISTORY OF YOLO COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
TOM GREGORY
AND OTHER WELL KNOWN WRITERS
ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA [1913]


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