Jacob Crow was born in Hensingham, near Whitehaven, Cumberland to Joseph and Mary Crow. Jacob and his brother William spent some time working on farms.

On 2 Oct 1875, Jacob Crow married Jane Leavens at St Johns in Hensingham. The witnesses were William Crow (Jacobs brother) and Mary Leavens (Janes sister). Jane had been born in Hensingham in 1849 to Isaac and Abigail Leavens. Ta this time Jacob was working as an iron ore miner and Jane had been a servant to Mr Knight, a gentleman and his wife.

Wages in Cumberland were desperately low. Friends of Jacob Crow, George and William Renshaw received a letter from a relation in Bannockburn, New Zealand. In the letter it was mentioned that "gold could be picked up from under the tussock" Jacob decided, along with the Renshaw brothers to emigrate to Bannockburn.

The Crow family sat for a photograph in Cleator before Jacob departed.

Jacob and the Renshaw brothers sailed from London in the 'Forfarshire'. The ship arrived at Port Chalmers on Oct 3 after a passage of 106 days. There was diptheria aboard and steerage passengers spent some time on quarantine island. The cabin passengers stayed on the ship. The Otago Witness had this to say of the married men : ' They appear, one and all, to be a most respectable class of men, the greater number of them being mechanics and the remainder agriculturalists and shepherds. The bulk of the passengers are Irish, English and Welsh, there being comparatively few Scotch people amongst them; and of the 130 single men who landed yesterday there was not one who was not comfortably clad and healthy in appearance. '

Jane Crow remained living in Moor Row near Egremont, Cumberland with her two daughters. On Oct 15 William Crow was born, twelve days after his father had landed in New Zealand. It would be two years before Jacob would see his son. Jacob walked from Dunedin to Bannockburn via Roxburgh and the Nevis. The Renshaw brothers obtained employment as Shepherds on Kawarau Station, Jacob may have initially stayed there with them. Jacob then moved to Duffers Gully and tried his hand at gold mining. It may well have been that Jacob initially lived in dwelling #301, or shared it with another miner. Jacob built his first dwelling #494 and lived there until the arrival of his family in 1881. A bigger house was required and Mr Crow built a new house (dwelling #346).