Posts Categorized: News

This month we are taking a brief look at the interesting life of John Jay’s brother, James Jay. Born into a large family, James was 13 years older than John, and left home to begin his medical studies in Edinburgh around the time of John’s birth in 1745. It is doubtful the boys ever had…

July – Olive Branch Petition In the early years during the conception of American independence, when the flames of revolution were ablaze and the fate of the new nation hung in the balance, a group of patriots sought to pursue reconciliation with their British counterparts. One of the key figures behind this bold endeavor was…

This month we are digging into the story of Colonel William Jay and his trusted horse ‘Old Fred.’ William and Fred survived numerous harrowing battles together during the American Civil War. On the property at John Jay Homestead is a gravestone that William had made for Fred that provides us with a written record of…

In 1850, while John Jay II was focusing most of his career on an anti-slavery law and activism, he also represented Swedish superstar opera singer Jenny Lind. At the time of her tour, Lind was by far the most popular singer on the planet, having enjoyed major success in Europe during the 1840s. Queen Victoria…

A room in Peter Jay’s New York City home was hung with portraits of people surnamed Peloquin. Peter, who would become John Jay’s father, called it the Bristol Room. The room celebrated the English port city that provided the Peloquins and the Jays with sanctuary when both families self-exiled from their native France to escape…

This month’s family story takes us to the 20th century, for a look at the life of one of the family’s most talented artists, Eleanor Iselin Wade. Eleanor, born June 3, 1910 to parents Eleanor Jay and Arthur Iselin, was the third of four children. “Weenie,” as she was known to family and friends, began…

In 1801 John Jay retired from public life to his farm in Bedford, New York.  The property was a sprawling country estate, around 700 acres.  While the farm was managed by a separate staff, the day-to-day household and estate operations were overseen by John Jay and his daughter Nancy.  In reviewing his account books, Jay…

On the evening of April 14, 1788, an angry mob of almost 5,000 people, or one quarter of the population of New York City, stormed the jail on Broadway yelling, “Bring out your doctors!” To control the crowd Governor George Clinton called in the militia but ordered them not to fire their weapons. He plead…

This month’s blog takes a look at the life of John Clarkson Jay IV (1915-2000), great-grandson of Dr. John Clarkson Jay (1808-1891), son of business executive John Clarkson Jay III (1880-1941) and Marguerite Soleliac (1877-1937). He is referred to as John Jay for here on out. John Jay was one of the most influential ski-film…

The family story this month revolves around Prudence Crandell, a schoolteacher in Canterbury, Connecticut. Crandell, a white woman, was arrested for allowing black students to attend the female boarding school she operated. William Jay, a prominent member in the American abolitionist movement, took an interest in Crandell’s plight and eventual court case, becoming an advisor…

Rockefeller, Morgan, Livingston, Astor. Names that will forever be associated with Gilded Age opulence. However, one cannot begin to think about the late 19th century without the name that would become synonymous with New York high society: Vanderbilt. Alva Smith Vanderbilt was determined to launch the Vanderbilt family into the social stratosphere after she married…

Beautiful, well-connected, and fascinated by power, Susan Mary Alsop was referred to as “the grand dame of Washington society” due to her political dinners attended by a who’s who of the capital city in the early 1960s. Born Susan Mary Jay in 1918, her father, Peter Augustus Jay, was an American diplomat and the great-great…