John Jay (December 12, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American statesman, Patriot, diplomat, a Founding Father of the United States, signer of the Treaty of Paris, and the first Chief Justice of the United States (1789–95).

Jay was born into a wealthy family of merchants and government officials in New York City. He became a lawyer and joined the New York Committee of Correspondence and organized opposition to British rule. He joined a conservative political faction that, fearing mob rule, sought to protect property rights and maintain the rule of law while resisting British violations of human rights.

Jay served as the President of the Continental Congress (1778–79), an honorific position with little power. During and after the American Revolution, Jay was a Minister (Ambassador) to Spain, France and Secretary of Foreign Affairs, helping to fashion United States foreign policy. His major diplomatic achievement was to negotiate favorable trade terms with Great Britain in the Treaty of London of 1794 when he was still serving as Supreme Court Chief Justice.

Jay, a proponent of strong, centralized government, worked to ratify the new Constitution in New York in 1788 by pseudonymously writing five of the Federalist Papers, along with the main authors Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

As a leader of the new Federalist Party, Jay was the Governor of New York State (1795–1801); and he became the state's leading opponent of slavery. His first two attempts to end slavery failed in 1777 and in 1785, but his third attempt succeeded in 1799. The 1799 Act, a gradualemancipation act, that he signed into law eventually brought about the emancipation of all slaves in New York before his death in 1829.

Family history 

John Jay was born on December 12, 1745, to a wealthy family of merchants and government officials in New York City. His father, Peter Jay, was born in New York City in 1704, and became a wealthy trader of furs, wheat, timber, and other commodities. On the paternal side, the Jays were a prominent merchant family in New York City, descended from French Huguenots who had come to New York to escape religious persecution in France. In 1685 the Edict of Nantes had been revoked, thereby abolishing the rights of Protestants and confiscating their property. Among those affected was Jay's paternal grandfather, Augustus Jay. He moved from France to New York, where he built up a successful merchant empire.

John's mother was Mary Van Cortlandt, who wed Peter Jay in 1728, in the Dutch Church.[1] They had ten children together, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Her father, Jacobus Van Cortlandt, was born in New Amsterdam in 1658. Van Cortlandt served on the New York Assembly, and twice as mayor of New York City. He also held a variety of judicial and military titles. Two of his children: Mary and his son Frederick, married into the Jay family.

Education

Jay spent his childhood in Rye, New York, and took the same political stand as his father, who was a staunch Whig. He was educated there by private tutors until he was eight years old, when he was sent to New Rochelle to study under Anglican pastor Pierre Stoupe. In 1756, after three years, he would return to homeschooling under the tutelage of George Murray.

Jay attended King's College (which was later renamed Columbia University) in 1760. During this time, Jay made many influential friends, including his closest friend, Robert Livingston—the son of a prominent New York aristocrat and Supreme Court justice. In 1764 he graduated and became a law clerk for Benjamin Kissam (1728–1782), a prominent lawyer and politician. (Kissam was a sought after instructor in the law. In addition to Jay, his students included Lindley Murray).

Entrance into lawyering and politics 

In 1768, after reading law and being admitted to the bar of New York, Jay, with the money from the government, established a legal practice and worked there until he created his own law office in 1771. He was a member of the New York Committee of Correspondence in 1774 and became its secretary, which was his first public role in the revolution.

Jay represented the conservative faction that was interested in protecting property rights and in preserving the rule of law, while resisting what it regarded as British violations of American rights. This faction feared the prospect of "mob rule". He believed the British tax measures were wrong and thought Americans were morally and legally justified in resisting them, but as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774, Jay sided with those who wanted conciliation with Parliament. Events such as the burning of Norfolk, Virginia, by British troops in January 1776 pushed Jay to support independence. With the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, he worked tirelessly for the revolutionary cause and acted to suppress the Loyalists. Jay evolved into first a moderate, and then an ardent Patriot, because he had decided that all the colonies' efforts at reconciliation with Britain were fruitless and that the struggle for independence, which became the American Revolution, was inevitable.

Marriage and family

Drawing of Sarah Jay by Robert Edge Pine

On 28 April 1774, Jay married Sarah Van Brugh Livingston, eldest daughter of the New Jersey Governor William Livingston and his wife. At the time of the marriage, Sarah was seventeen years old and John was twenty-eight. She accompanied Jay to Spain, and later was with him in Paris, where they and their children resided with Benjamin Franklin at Passy. Jay had a lot of tragedy in his family life. His wife’s brother Henry Brock Livingston was lost during the disappearance of the Continental naval ship named Saratoga during the Revolutionary War. While in Paris, as a diplomat to France, Jay's father passed away. This event forced a lot of responsibility on to John Jay. Peter and Anna, Jay's blind brother and sister, became the diplomat's responsibility. Another one of Jay's brothers, Augustus, suffered from mental disabilities that forced Jay to provide not only financial, but emotional support to Augustus. Jay's brother Fredrick was in constant financial trouble causing John additional stress. Jay's other brother James was in direct competition with his brother John in the political arena. He joined the loyalist faction of the New York State Senate at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, causing him to be an embarrassment to the Jay Family.

Death 

On the night of May 14, 1829, Jay was stricken with palsy, probably caused by a stroke. He lived for three days, dying in Bedford, New York, on May 17. Jay had chosen to be buried in Rye, where he lived as a boy. In 1807, he had transferred the remains of his ancestors from the family vault in the Bowery in Manhattan to Rye, establishing a private cemetery. Today, the Jay Cemetery is an integral part of the Boston Post Road Historic District, adjacent to the historic Jay Property. The Cemetery is maintained by the Jay descendants and closed to the public. It is the oldest active cemetery associated with a figure from the American Revolution.