A 1st generation American, Jacob was the 5th son of James Archdeacon/Cody III from Kilkenny, Ireland and Sarah Womack. He was born eleven years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence and was twenty-four years old when George Washington was selected President. Jacob spent his childhood living on his parent’s farm in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

In about 1775, when Jacob was 10 years old, James III moved his family about 50 miles south to Caswell County, NC. James IIIs older brother, Edmund Archdeacon and his family remained in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Unfortunately, few records chronicle Jacob Cody’s activities between his birth and his purchase of land in Georgia in 1804.

Like his father, he was probably about 5 feet, 6 inches tall - about middle sized for the Colonial period. His hands and arms would be of a man used to felling trees, plowing fields and splitting his own firewood. He was a farmer and as such enjoyed no social standing. He never learned to write and probably only had rudimentary reading skills.

In the early 1790s, at about the time North Carolina entered the union, Jacob’s brothers and sisters moved to Georgia where they were recorded on the tax rolls. Jacob apparently went to Georgia with them as he married Elizabeth Gilliland in Jackson County, Georgia, in 1803 at 38 years of age. In January 1804, Jacob Cody purchased 75 acres near Beach Creek in Jackson County, Georgia, for $270.43. Jacob and Elizabeth stayed in Jackson County until about 1812 — after the birth of their fourth child. With their four children and their entire household belongings piled into heavy wagons, they left Georgia for Giles County, Tennessee. Travel was slow and arduous everywhere; the roads were appallingly bad especially so in the South. It would take more than a month to reach their destination.

In 1814, Jacob Cody received 50 acres of land in Giles County, Tennessee, from Joel Echols. The land was part of a larger land warrant that Echols received in 1794 from the State of North Carolina for raising troops during the American Revolution for the protection of Davidson County, Tennessee. The service that Jacob Cody rendered for the 50 acres is not known. Jacob and Elizabeth Cody sold the land in 1816 for $100 as indicated below. On Nov. 16, 1816, the deed documenting Jacob Cody’s sale of 50 acres of land in Roberson’s Fork, Giles County, Tennessee, to Samuel Patrick was registered with the State. Robertson’s Fork is located in northern Giles County, Tennessee about 1 mile south and halfway between the towns of Lynnville and Waco.

About one year after selling their land in Giles County, Tennessee, Jacob and Elizabeth received information that Nancy Gilliland, Elizabeth’s sister, was gravely ill in Lauderdale County, Alabama. In 1818, Jacob and Elizabeth purchased 159 acres of land in Lauderdale County, Alabama, to be near Nancy Gilliland. After her death in 1821, the land was sold. The most compelling document linking Jacob and Elizabeth (Gilliland) Cody with their seven children was Nancy Gilliland’s Will.

Not a family for settling down, they migrated to Hardeman County, Tennessee, where they stayed until the early 1830s. During this time Jacob Cody was a farmer and reportedly a deacon in the Primitive Baptist Church in Fayette County, Alabama. Four of Jacob's five sons (not Thomas J.) moved to Marion County, Alabama, in the early 1830s. By about 1839 Jacob’s two married daughters, Elizabeth (Cody) Wright and Nancy (Cody) Wright and their families also migrated from Tennessee to Marion County, Alabama. Because of Jacob Cody’s predilection to live in frontier and wilderness areas, his family group was not enumerated on any US Census until he “retired” to Marion County, Alabama, in the early 1830s. The only known document listing the children of Jacob and Elizabeth (Gilliland) Cody is the Will of Nancy Gilliland, sister of Elizabeth.

By the 1840 enumeration, Jacob Cody was living with his wife in the southwestern corner of Marion County, Alabama, with their seven children and spouses plus twenty-eight grandchildren. When Jacob Cody and his adult children migrated from Hardeman County, Tennessee, to Marion County, Alabama, several Indian tribes lived in the area. The closest were the Chickasaws who, along with the Creeks and Cherokees were relocated in the mid-1830s—referred to as the “Trail of Tears”. One large assembly moved through Marion County.

Marion County homesteaders tended to be poor and isolated in the late 1830s and early 1840s. The county had no rivers to transport produce relying instead on Andrew Jackson’s Military Road for commerce. Built after the War of 1812 to connect New Orleans with Nashville, Jacob may have traveled this road when moving from Tennessee to Marion County. The Cody and Wright families settled in what was known as the Cody Mountain Community in southwestern Marion County. Jacob’s children purchased land from the federal government and obtained land patents from the Huntsville Land Office.

It was not uncommon for frontier families in rural America to have many family members living on nearby farms. The prevalence of illness, early death and the needs of the sick required considerable family support. By 1850, Jacob, at 85 years of age, was living with his son, James Archdeacon Cody on a farm in Marion County, Alabama. Jacob’s wife, Elizabeth, may have died between 1840-50 as she was not listed in the census. Three other sons, Greenberry, Edmund Baker and Miles Franklin lived on farms nearby. Jacob, who was born before the Declaration of Independence was written, died at 93 years of age and about three years before Abraham Lincoln was elected president. He is buried in Marion County, Alabama, in Friendship North Baptist Church Cemetery. Jacob’s son, Edmund Baker Cody, deeded 6½ acres on “Cody Mountain” for the church and cemetery on June 25, 1852. Jacob’s daughters, Elizabeth and Nancy, and their spouses (Doctor James Henry Wright and Robert Roper Wright, respectively) as well as his son, Miles Franklin Cody and both his wives are also buried there.