Washington Michael Jacobs

Washington Michael Jacobs (August 29, 1828 – May 23, 1899) was born in Balford, South Carolina to Ann Baldwin Jacobs and Cornelius Jacobs in the United States of America. Both of his parents were natives of South Carolina and his mother was a native of Charleston.

In 1849 Jacobs moved to San Francisco, California traveling aboard ship by way of Cape Horn. He spent about six years, from 1850 to 1856, in California and western Arizona. At Ajo, Arizona he worked as an assayer in the mines near Yuma and Arizona City. He then lived in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and later made his way to South America, living in Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, where he was engaged in mining also.

In 1874 Jacobs married Miss Rosa Mulet, the accomplished French-Chilean daughter of a merchant in Valparaíso, Chile. They moved to Lima, Peru where he began interests in mines and politics and, published a semi-weekly newspaper, El Tumbes, and the Imprenta Americana. For a time he served as the American Vice-consul at Lima, Peru. Four of their eight children were born in Peru: Elizardo Antonio Jacobs (September 2, 1875 – November 28, 1950), Leyendo (born 1876), Laura (born 1877), and Ricardo Benjamin Jacobs (better known as Benjamin R. Jacobs) (March 15, 1879 – February 3, 1963).

At the outbreak of war between Bolivia and the joint forces of Chile, and Peru in 1879, the War of the Pacific, the Jacobs family returned to Oakland, California and shortly afterward, moved to Tucson, Arizona. After arriving in the "Old Pueblo" in March 1880, he established an assay office (the "Washington M. Jacobs Assay Office and Chemical Laboratory") and continued in the assay business until he died on May 23, 1899 while visiting Los Angeles, California. Rosa Jacobs was a respected music teacher in Tucson and, later, Oakland and San Francisco.

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