John Jay

Smallpox went through the Jay household and left two of the children blind, and Peter Jay quit the fur and wheat trade and moved everyone out to a farm at Rye. John was three months old. His mother taught him until he was eight, an Anglican priest at New Rochelle took the next three years, and at 14 he entered King's College in New York, where Robert Livingston became his closest friend. He read law under Benjamin Kissam, joined the bar in 1768 and had his own office by 1771. He belonged to the Whigs who held that British taxes were illegal and that mobs were worse. In April 1774 he married Sarah Livingston, 17 years old, daughter of a future governor of New Jersey.

Congress elected him its president at 33. Spain, where he pried a loan from a court that would not receive him, then Paris and terms from Britain the French had not sanctioned. Secretary for Foreign Affairs of a government that could not compel a single state. Five Federalist essays before illness stopped his pen. Chief Justice from 1789, over a court that decided four cases in six years. A treaty signed in London on November 19, 1794. Two terms as governor. BriefHistory carries the treaties and the bench. What follows is the household he kept while he kept the country.

Jay founded the New York Manumission Society in 1785 and led it, and the censuses of 1790 and 1800 both record him as the owner of five enslaved people. Across his life he bought, hired out and freed at least 17. The method was deliberate: buy a person, hold them until their labor returned what he called a reasonable retribution, then manumit. In 1783 a woman he enslaved named Abigail ran in Paris, was caught, jailed, and died of illness. Jay was annoyed and suggested she be left in prison a while. As governor he signed the 1799 gradual abolition act, which freed nobody then living and bound the children of enslaved mothers until 25 or 28. He also pressed the New York convention to bar Catholics from office, wanting a wall of brass around the country to exclude them.

He turned down the chief justiceship a second time in 1801 and farmed at Bedford for 28 years, breaking his silence once, in 1819, to write that slavery ought not be introduced or permitted in any new state. Palsy struck him on the night of May 14, 1829, and he died three days later, the last surviving delegate to the First Continental Congress. He is buried at Rye in a private cemetery he made in 1807 by moving his wife and his ancestors out of a Manhattan vault. His descendants maintain it and keep it closed. His name went onto towns in three states, a county in Indiana, a fort on Governors Island and a college of criminal justice.

John Jay's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Address to the People of Great Britain article
  His first national document, drafted for the First Continental Congress 1774
• Treaty of Paris law
  Negotiated with Franklin and Adams. John Adams credited Jay with the central role 1783
• New York Manumission Society company
  He founded it and served as president while enslaving people himself 1785
• The Federalist, Nos. 2 to 5 and 64 article
  Illness cut his contribution to five essays out of 85 1788
• The Jay Treaty law
  Signed in London while he was sitting Chief Justice 1794
• An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery law
  Signed as governor. It freed nobody already enslaved 1799

• 1764 aged ~19 Graduates from King's College at 18 He had entered at 14 and made a lifelong friend of Robert Livingston.
• April 28, 1774 aged 28 Marries Sarah Livingston, 17 years old, in New Jersey
• December 10, 1778 aged 32 Elected President of the Continental Congress A largely ceremonial post with no executive power behind it.
• September 3, 1783 aged 37 Signs the Treaty of Paris
• 1783 aged ~38 Abigail, a woman he enslaved, dies after a failed escape in Paris She was caught and jailed, and died of illness soon after. Jay suggested she be left there a while.
• October 19, 1789 aged 43 Sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States
• November 19, 1794 aged 48 Signs the Jay Treaty in London He dropped Southern demands for compensation for enslaved people the British had freed.
• 1799 aged ~54 Signs New York's gradual abolition act as governor From July 4, 1799 children born to enslaved mothers were free, after apprenticeships to 25 or 28.
• May 17, 1829 aged 83 Dies at Bedford, New York

• Alexander Hamilton 1755–1804
  Founding Father who established the nation's financial system and co-authored the Federalist Papers. co-author
• James Madison 1751–1836
  Fourth President and Father of the Constitution who co-authored the Federalist Papers. co-author
• George Washington 1732–1799
  First President of the United States and commander of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. appointed by
• John Adams 1735–1826
  Second President and key Founding Father who helped secure independence and shaped early American diplomacy. fellow peace commissioner
• Robert R. Livingston 1746–1813
  Chancellor of New York who administered Washington's oath and negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. closest college friend
• John Marshall 1755–1835
  Chief justice who established judicial review and strengthened the Supreme Court and federal government. rebuilt the court he left