Background
Jacob Cist was born on March 13, 1782 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of Charles Cist and of his wife, Mary Weiss.
Jacob Cist was born on March 13, 1782 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of Charles Cist and of his wife, Mary Weiss.
Cist attended the Philadelphia public schools. Later he studied for three years at the Moravian Academy (Nazareth Hall) in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where he exhibited particular interests in geography, manufacture, and illustration.
Cist entered his father’s printing establishment at the age of fifteen and three years later became manager of a similar business newly founded by his father in Washington, D. C. Some months later this establishment was forced to close by reason of the change of Federal administration and Jacob entered the United States Post Office Department. He served in clerical capacities for eight years, then resigned to settle in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and was appointed postmaster there, which office he held for the rest of his life.
Through his father, educated as a physician and apothecary, Cist became interested in the natural sciences, particularly geology. He was also clever at sketches, both in ink and oils, and was apt at writing, having from an early age published in magazines and newspapers essays in prose and verse on a variety of subjects—“Morning”; “Noon”; “Ode on Hope”; “Eve’s Cotton Gin. ” With this background, Cist in his leisure studied and “geologized” a large part of the country about Wilkes-Barre and became thoroughly familiar with its mineral resources, especially anthracite coal.
With friends he undertook the mining and marketing of this commodity between 1813 and 1815, acquiring a lease on the defunct Lehigh Coal Mine Company’s land near Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania. Like its predecessor, Cist’s company was unsuccessful in convincing either the domestic or industrial consumer of the value of this new fuel and abandoned the project.
Cist’s scientific interest did not flag, however, and between 1815 and 1821 he collected and distributed both in this country and France fossil plants and flora, described many of the coal formations, and corresponded with various scientists on the general subject, most of his data being published in the American Journal of Science, in 1822. Cist’s interest in the general development of his new environment prompted him to endeavor to organize a glass-works and pottery in 1808 and an iron works in 1820, but without success.
He was one of the founders of the Luzerne County Agricultural Society and did much to introduce the finer grades of fruit trees. He spent many years in the preparation of a work on American Entomology, making hundreds of drawings for the same. This was not completed at his death and was subsequently lost.
Cist was a member and the first corresponding secretary of the Luzerne County Agricultural Society.
Cist married Sarah Hollenback of Wilkes-Barre on August 25, 1807, and was survived by two daughters.
