Jacob Croyle Stineman was born on April 9, 1842, in Richland Township (later Adams Township), Cambria County, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth (née Croyle) and Jacob Stineman.

At the age of 16, he became a teacher and taught at a school on Frankstown Road in Adams Township for four years.

[1][2] Following the Confederate Army entering Pennsylvania in 1863, Stineman served two months in the state militia.

[3] He later enlisted in the Union Army and attained the rank of sergeant in Company F of the 198th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment in the Civil War.

[1][2][3] During his first tenure in the senate, he served as chairman of the public grounds and buildings committee and served on the corporations, forestry, legislative apportionment, military affairs and railroad committees.

In 1913, he served as chairman of the library committee and served on the appropriations, congressional apportionment, corporations, finance, legislative apportionment, mines and mining, and public supply of light, heat, and water committees.

[3] In 1907, he was appointed by Governor Edwin Sydney Stuart as a member of the Gettysburg Memorial Commission.

[1] He taught Sunday school and was a member of the board of trustees of Albright College in Myerstown.

They had eight children, Nora Lucretia, Albert Meade, Washington Irving, Oliver Morton, Jacob Wilbur, Nettie May, Harvey Cameron and Lillie Blanche.