David Jacks (1822-1909)
David Jacks' story begins in Crief, Scotland, located 40 miles northeast of Edinburgh, where he was born in 1822. Letters written to Jacks by his sister years later portray life in Crief as bleak. It is no wonder David Jacks immigrated to America in 1841, at the age of 19, to join his two older brothers who had already established themselves as shopkeepers on Long Island. He ventured out on his own in the mid 1840s, finding employment at Brooklyn's Fort Hamilton, overlooking New York Harbor.