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Jacob was born in 1806 in Hayna, Bas Rhin, French Republic. (Hayna was under French control at the time.)
Jacob Metz was courting Josepha’s older sister Maria Christine Metz. Jacob and Maria Christine had decided to get married, but when the young lady heard that Jacob intended to go immediately to the United States of America to seek his fortune she refused to go. Undaunted Jacob asked her younger sister Josepha to be his bride. She accepted so Jacob married Josepha Metz on 9/1/1837 in the Catholic Church in Hayna.
Not long after the marriage, Jacob and Josepha were at the Port of Le Havre on the French coast. They boarded the Bolivar and were on there way to America. On November 20, 1837 they arrived in New orleans, LA. They made their way up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to Cincinnati, OH.
Early in 1838 Maria Eva Rang Metz (the 2nd wife of George Martin Metz) with son Jacob (now 31 years old), son Joseph (26), and son-in-law Jacob Weiler (about 23, and husband of Maria Elizabeth Metz) purchased 45 acres of land about 1.2 miles west of the Petersburg community at the upper end of the Lick Run valley, in Green Township west of Cincinnati, OH. The deed was recorded 3/12/1838.
In 1843 the 45 acre farm was divided into 3 sections of 15 acres, owned by Jacob Metz, Joseph Metz, and Jacob Weiler. Jacob Weiler owned the western section.
In the summer of 1847 Jacob Metz and Joseph Metz purchased an additional 22 acres adjoining their property on the south.
Joseph and Jacob Metz lived on and worked the farm.
Jacob and Josepha had 4 children born on the Farm. When Josepha was 32 years old she died on July 10,1849 on the Farm of cholera in the epidemic that swept through Cincinnati that summer.
Teresa Berger Sheblessy writes “Jacob Metz is a name indelibly seared into my memory, although I was only 13 when he passed into eternity. He was my maternal grandfather, a lovable old gentleman. A good disciplinarian, kind yet firm, the thought of not carrying out his expressed wishes, never occurred to me or to anyone else. He was a widower at 31 with four children to rear himself. He remained in the house he had bought when a young man, and continued to make his home there, even after his oldest son, George, brought his young wife to live there. He was particularly devoted to his daughter Mary, my mother, his third child. When he was 80 years old, he asked to move in with us and we all were happy to have him. At 84, he had to have an eye removed, luckily it was a successful operation because he liked to read. He lived to be 87.”
From his obit “He grew grapes and made wine.” “He was known for many years as a leading, honest businessman.”
"Grandpa Jacob Metz had an eye removed when he was 84. He made his home with us for a number of yers before his death. He was a grand old man and we were all devoted to him. His hobby was music. he enjoyed directing the quartette: George Berger, baritone, Robert Bauer, bass, Tony Metz, tenor, and John Eckerle, high tenor."*
Jacob lived until he was 87.
Jacob and Josepha are buried in the Metz plot in St. Aloysius – Bridgetown Cemetary, Lot 45, section 1.
* by Teresa Berger Sheblessy.
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