Jacob Albert Hill was the firstborn son of Elisha Hill and Elizabeth (Souter) Hill of Newberry South Carolina. Their second son, William Langdon Hill, was born in 1822. When Elisha married Elizabeth, she was a widow with four children;Andrew, Adam, Nancy and Betsy Zuber. Elisha died at 29 years of age in 1824 but left the family well-off financially. Jacob was ordained as a Baptist minister and preached at Enoree Baptist Church. He married Elizabeth Chapman in 1841. He and his wife moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the 1850s and he was elected as a State Representative in 1861. He favored secession from the Union and two of his sons, Andrew Malone and John Paul Hill, served with the Confederate Army, while he remained as a Captain of the Home Guard in Tuscaloosa. John Paul Hill was killed at the age of 20 in the battle of Franklin,TN in 1864 and is buried there. After the war was lost he moved his family to East Texas where he was the Pastor of Daily Baptist Church near present-day Grapeland, Texas.
Their children were Andrew Malone, born 1842 and married Emma Barbour; John Paul born 1844 and killed in action during the Civil War in 1864; Mary Elizabeth born 1847 and married A. T. Farrar; James Albert born 1852 and married Emma Catherine (Miltia) Dailey; Nancy Furman born 1855 and married George P. Isbell; Ellen Rocenda (Nellie) born 1859 and married Tom S. Kent; Daniel Chapman born 1862 and married Alma Amerial Hill; Ann Alberta born 1866 and married Harrell Tatum. Of these children only two remained in Houston County- James Albert Hill and Ellen Rocenda (Nellie) Hill. Ellen Rocenda (Nellie) married Tom S. Kent of Reynard. Most of his family, including his brother and his wife and children stayed in East Texas, around Crockett. He returned to the Carolinas after his wife died in 1886. She is buried in Houston County, Texas.