Jacob Schieffelin
Jacob Schieffelin (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 24, 1757 – New York City, April 16, 1835) was an American loyalist, merchant, landowner and philanthropist. Early life Jacob Schieffelin was the first son of Jacob Schieffelin and Regina Margaretha Ritschauer. He was born in Philadelphia in 1757, to where his grandfather and father emigrated (his father was only 16 years old at the time of his emigration) from Weilheim an der Teck, Germany, in 1749 and 1750. Jacob's grandfather Johan Jacob Scheuffelin and his father Jacob Schieffelin had left Germany not out of economic, political, or religious need, but out of curiosity, and the desire for a freer and better life that they hoped to find in the maturing colony of America. From 1743 on, Johan Jacob Scheuffelin (1712 – 1750) sold many properties, fields, vineyards, and land in Weilheim an der Teck to prepare his and his sons emigration to America. He brought a large fortune to America and wanted to use it to buy land. Jacob's grandfather died soon after arriving in Philadelphia, PA, in 1750, and his father was raised as an orphan in Germantown, Philadelphia. Jacob's mother had the same fate and was raised as an orphan in Germantown,