John A. Jacobs. A native of the old Creek Nation, John A. Jacobs for the past quarter of a century has played an important part in local business life and tribal affairs, and is one of the most prosperous and influential citizens of Holdenville, Hughes County. He is known as a banker, has oil interests, and directs the management of a large acreage of farming land.

His birth occurred at the home of his parents eight miles southwest of Holdenville, Oklahoma, August 12, 1871, a son of Frank and Rebecca (Broadax) Jacobs. His mother who was born in the Creek nation, was a quarter blood Cherokee and a quarter blood Creek, and also of French ancestry. She died at the old home south of Holdenville when John A. Jacobs was four years of age. His father was born on Honeycreek four miles from Checota. and one side he was of Creek and on the other side of German ancestry. Frank Jacobs spent the most of his life in a store until about fifty years of age, when he took up farming and stock raising, and was one of the most successful men of the Creek country. He died at his home three miles west of Holdenville July 7, 1909, at the age of seventy. John A. Jacobs was one of three children. The oldest is Leah, now the wife of Bunny McIntosh at Eufaula. John A. has a twin sister Lizzie, wife of Freeland Alex of Wewoka. Frank Jacobs was three times married. His first wife was Lucinda, a full blood Creek Indian, and their one child Lou is the wife of A. J. Brown of Seminole County. His third wife was Jennie Coker also a Creek Indian. Their six children were: Mattie, wife of Ira Foster of Holdenville; Newman, who lives near Holdenville: Sarah, wife of George Perryman. Jr., of Tulsa; Josie, wife of George Harkey of Tulsa; Willie, who lives with her mother three miles west of Holdenville; and Louis.

John A. Jacobs has spent practically all his life in Hughes County. He gained his education by attending the common schools, the boarding schools of the Creek Nation and Austin College at Sherman, Texas. Besides his literary training he had a course in a business college. He began his career in the hardware business at Holdenville, and conducted one of the prosperous trading establishments in that village for three years. He has since been concerned in the management of his extensive interests as a banker and oil man and farmer. He is a director in the First National Bank of Holdenville and at different times has been a director in three others banks which have been sold or consolidated. A considerable part of his prosperity has come from his holdings in the productive oil fields of Oklahoma, and he is the owner of half a dozen farms.

He is a democrat, and for years was one of the leaders in tribal affairs. For a time he was member of the Committee on Registering Warrants. He was also prosecuting attorney of the old Wewoka district of the Creek Nation, most of the territory under his jurisdiction being now included in Hughes County. For four years he was a member of the House of Kings or the Senate, and for a similar period was a member of the Lower House of the Creek Council. At the last election ever held for Creek tribal officials he made the race for second chief. He was defeated by the present chief Maty Tiger. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason with membership in the Consistory at McAlester, and with the blue lodge at Holdenville, and also belongs to India Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Oklahoma City.

In 1893 Mr. Jacobs married Mary Shawneego, who was born on Deep Fork in Indian Territory in 1877. Her father was a Shawnee Indian and her mother was half Shawnee and half Creek. Mrs. Jacobs died November 2, 1915, after a marriage companionship of twenty-two years, being survived by three children named Frank, Lizzie and Elsie.