Born on the island of Jamaica, where two previous generations of DeLeons lie buried, Jacob made his way to America at a young age. Verylikely he arrived during the Revolution and he may have fought,although family legend that attributed to him a captaincy underDeKalb seems apocryphal.

Hisfirst location was New York, where he must have early establishedhimself within the city’s Jewish elite. In 1789 he married HannahHendricks, daughter of Uriah and Eve Esther Gomez Hendricks, andsister of the celebrated Harmon Hendricks.The following year their first son, Abraham, was born. He was namedfor De Leon’s father who had died a few years earlier in SpanishTown.

By1796 the family—now including three more children—had moved toCharleston. There, De Leon again rose through the ranks of theSephardic mercantile class. De Leon involved himself extensively infreemasonry, and was followed in this by his sons. Indeed, hiseldest, Worshipful Master of Camden’s Kershaw Masonic Lounge LodgeNo. 29 Abraham De Leon would help welcome Marquis the de Lafayette onhis visit to South Carolina, and so impressed was the marquis with DeLeon’s French, that he presented him with his own grand master’sjewel.

South Carolina was to prove the De Leon home for a number ofgenerations. Jacob died in Columbia and Hannah in Camden. Ten of hiseleven male descendants would serve in the Confederacy, eight losingtheir lives in battle.