Quick Facts
Biography
Thornwell Jacobs (1877–1956) was an educator, author, and a Presbyterian minister.
Early life
Jacobs was born in Clinton, South Carolina, February 15, 1877, at the Thornwell Orphanage. The orphanage was founded by his father, Reverend William Plumer Jacobs. His mother was Mary Jane (Dillard) Jacobs.
Jacobs learned the printing trade while he was still quite young. Later he earned the Bachelor of Arts degree and Master of Arts degree from South Carolina's Presbyterian College in 1895, also founded by his father. He also graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey in 1899.
His grandfather Ferdinand Jacobs taught Mathematics and Astronomy at the antebellum Oglethorpe University, based in Milledgeville, GA, from 1845 to 1849.
Adult life
Jacobs served as a Presbyterian pastorate in Morganton at the Presbyterian Church from 1900 to 1903. He then worked in advertising in Nashville, Tennessee, until 1905. After this time Jacobs began institutional support for the Thornwell Orphanage.
Career
Jacobs is noted for revitalizing and rebuilding the antebellum college of Oglethorpe University. He became its president on January 21, 1915 and continued in that position for nearly three decades. Oglethorpe University, named after James Edward Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony of Georgia, had been chartered a Presbyterian institution in 1835. It had been shut down during the American Civil War and did not successfully reopen until Jacobs intervened.
Death
Jacobs died August 4, 1956. He is buried at the First Presbyterian Church cemetery in Clinton, South Carolina.
Works
- Sinful Saddy (1907)
- The Law of the White Circle (1908), a novella.
- Midnight Mummer (poems) (1911)
- The Oglethorpe Story (1916)
- Life of William Plumer Jacobs (1918)
- New Science and the Old Religion (1927)
- Islands of the Blest (poems) (1928)
- Oglethorpe Book of Georgia Verse (1930)
- Diary of William Plumber Jacobs (1937)
- William Plumber Jacobs Memorabilla (1942)
- Red Lanterns on St. Michael's (1940), an historical novel about the Siege of Charleston during the American Civil War.
- Story of Christmas (1941)
- Drums of Doomsday (1942), a novel about a visionary Presbyterian minister who attempts to bring religion to Hollywood.
- Step down, Dr. Jacobs (1945)
- When For The Truth - A Novel of Reconstruction Days in South Carolina (1950)