When she was still a girl, her master wanted to start a sexual relationship with her. She refused and entered into a relationship with Samuel Tredwell Sawyer. Sawyer was a lawyer and had some power to protect her. He became the father of her two children, Joseph and Louisa Matilda. Still, the law gave a master absolute power over a slave. Jacobs's master wanted to sell her children away from her. In 1835, she decided to hide in a small room in her grandmother's house. That room was so small that she could not stand up. She had to stay there for seven years. Because she could neither stand nor walk, she was suffering from leg problems for many years afterwards. In 1842, she was finally able to escape to Philadelphia by boat. From Philadelphia, she went to New York where she found work as a nanny for the children of Nathaniel Parker Willis. Also her brother John S. Jacobs and her children were able to escape from slavery.