Jacob Read was born about 1752 in Christ Church Parish, South Carolina, at "Hobcaw, " the plantation of his maternal grandfather, for whom he was named. He was the eldest son of Rebecca (Bond) and the Hon. James Read of Charleston, who settled in Savannah, Georgia, about the year 1759 as partner in the firm of Read & Mossman, and became one of his Majesty's Council for Georgia.
Jacob received his early education, probably with his younger brother William, at the boarding school of Joseph and William Gibbons in Savannah.
Soon after his admission to the bar on March 23, 1773, he went to England. Here he was admitted to Gray's Inn, November 3, 1773, and in 1774 he was one of the signers of the petition of the Americans in London against the Massachusetts Government Acts. Upon his return to South Carolina in 1776, he became a captain in the Charleston militia.
In 1778, his father, when about to die, conveyed to him in trust his entire estate in South Carolina and Georgia; but because of uncertainty in regard to the value of money and debts due in Great Britain he was unable to settle the estate until the close of his life, and supported his father's family from professional earnings. After the surrender of General Lincoln in 1780, he was among the Americans exiled to St. Augustine, where he remained until transferred to Philadelphia in 1781.
When civil government was restored in South Carolina, as representative of Charleston he took his seat in the assembly that met in January 1782, in Jacksonborough, where he was on the committee to amerce Loyalists, and actively opposed the bill for arming the blacks. The next year he became a member of the Privy Council.
On Feburary 12, 1783, he was elected to the Continental Congress, and continued an active and important member until 1786, serving on many committees and carrying on correspondence with Jay, Washington, and other prominent men of the day.
In 1786 his mother died, leaving him sole executor of her will and guardian of two minors. As one of the counsel of defense that year in the case growing out of the Snipes-Simons duel, he was carrying on his profession, but the contagion of schemes for ending the hard times carried him in 1787 as charter member into a company to build a canal from the Ashley to the Edisto, designed to improve communication with the northwestern portion of the state. Elected speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives, January 8, 1787, he continued to serve until the close of 1794.
In July of that year, as attorney for two Dutch merchants whose vessel had been seized by Americans flying the colors of the French Republic, he experienced a disagreeable encounter and unwelcome publicity, which perhaps hurt him politically. The affair resulted in his challenging the editor of the South Carolina State-Gazette, but an officer of the law prevented the duel. As a member of the South Carolina Convention of 1788, he showed Federalist trends in opposing the motions that consideration of the federal constitution be postponed and that reeligibility of the president be deemed dangerous to liberty. Having voted for ratification, he moved the thanks of the convention to the South Carolina framers of the constitution.
As a Federalist he served the term 1795-1801 in the United States Senate, and by a close vote was defeated for reëlection, December 8, 1800, by John Ewing Colhoun. The Judiciary Act of Feburary 13, 1801, provided for sixteen new judgeships.
On Feburary 23, 1801, President Adams appointed Read judge of the South Carolina district, to take the place of Thomas Bee, who was advanced to chief judge of the new circuit. The act was repealed in March 1802, however, and a different arrangement of circuits created, so that Read never served. He became brigadier-general of South Carolina militia and was commanding officer of the Seventh Brigade, 1808-16. Fifteen years after writing his will at his summer home in Newport, Rhode Island, he died at his residence on Montagu Street, Charleston, and was buried in the family cemetery at "Hobcaw. "
He married, October 13, 1785, Catharine, daughter of David Van Horne, merchant, deceased, of that city; two sons and two daughters were born of the union.
