His grandfather, Col. Jacob, was a native of Virginia, where he was educated as a surveyor. When a young man he came to Pennsylvania and settled in Carbon County, upon the present site of Weissport, which was named in his honor. At that early period it was a fort. He served in the Revolutionary War and was Quartermaster-General of the army, with the rank of Colonel. For his day he was a very noted man. He was a scien- tist and geologist, and it was really due to him that anthracite coal was introduced. The story related in the early history of the county is something to this effect: Philip Ginter, an old hunter in the mountains, on one of his trips noticed a small black stone dislodged by his feet, and discovering more he concluded it was the stone coal he had heard of. He took a few specimens to Col. Jacob Weiss, who in turn carried them on horseback to Philadelphia, where he had a blacksmith friend; but though they tried to burn it they were not very successful. Not daunted, however, he returned and gathered more of the coal, Mr. Ginter having shown him the place, and in return received a title for a small property. Once more he took these specimens to Philadelphia and they placed them on the coals. They did not succeed in making them burn at first, but left to go to dinner, and on their return found everything red hot. They soon discovered that, just as they had left, an underdraft had been produced by raising the log that lay in the front, and thus they discovered the principle that all that was necessary in burning this variety of coal is a good underdraft. As he did not have any capital, and there were no means of transportation, for years afterward nothing was done with the industry. The Colonel was a Lutheran, in which faith he died in 1840.

Colonel Jacob Weiss was born in Philadelphia in 1751, where he was educated for a surveyor. He entered the Continental army in the first command of Philadelphia volunteers, under Captain Cadwalader. He served with distinction in the struggle for American independence and, at the earnest solicitation of General Mifflin, then acting as quartermaster-general to whom he had served an apprenticeship in the mercantile line, and who knew him to be a trusty and efficient accountant, was appointed deputy quartermaster-general, serving first under General Mifflin, and afterward under General Greene, in which position he remained until General Greene took command of the southern army. Throughout that perilous period he was almost constantly attached to and followed the various and unexpected movements of the main army, which proved a very harassing and arduous service. By the advice of General Greene, who held him in great affection, he accepted the appointment of assistant deputy quartermaster-general at Easton, for the county of Northampton, in the autumn of 1780, and continued to act in that capacity until the close of the war. In 1785, following the close of the war, he settled upon a tract of land which had been purchased from the Moravians, on the Lehigh river, north of the Blue mountains. He was a scientist and geologist, and the utilization of anthracite coal as a fuel is due to him. In 1791 anthracite coal was discovered, and Colonel Jacob Weiss took the first specimens of that fuel to Philadelphia, submitting it for inspection. The Lehigh River, with its unimproved condition and the mountainous character of the country between the coal beds and the distant market, seemed to present insurmountable obstacles to any attempt to place the coal before the public. Hardly anything larger than a canoe could be made to float upon the river because of its rocky bed and swift current. Colonel Weiss, notwithstanding the inauspicious outlook, determined that the coal should at least be introduced to convince the public of its value, and ox-teams were therefore brought into requisition and several loads were hauled across the mountains to Mahoning, and thence to Fort Allen. Colonel Weiss would fill his saddlebags with the despised substance, and ride out among the blacksmiths in the country and earnestly solicit them to give the coal a trial. A few accepted the proffered gift and used it with partial success, while others threw it aside as soon as the Colonel was out of sight, with the remark that he must be crazy, but time proved the correctness of his judgment as to the value of the discovery.

Colonel Weiss was a man of liberal education, strong mind and remarkable memory, and possessed a most generous and kindly disposition. He had the misfortune to be deprived of his eye-sight about twenty years before his death, and he also became extremely deaf, but he bore his affliction with the quiet resignation which always marks the strong, self-reliant character. He died at Weissport. January 9, 1839, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, and was buried in the graveyard on the hill. He had married Elizabeth Robinson, and their children numbered four: Francis, born in Philadelphia, March 7, 1773, died March 5, 1845; Rebecca, born April 9, 1774, was married to William Hartfield and died in Bethlehem, February 14, 1845 ' Jacob, born Au- gust 18, 1775 ; and Thomas, born in Philadelphia, August 29, 1776, and died in Weissport, April 23, 1847.

Extensive bio.