John Jay

John Jay was born on December 12, 1745, in New York City to a wealthy merchant family, and died on May 17, 1829. He served as the first chief justice of the United States from 1789 to 1795 and as the second governor of New York from 1795 to 1801, and is counted among the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a delegate to the Continental Congress he served as its president, negotiated Spanish financial aid for the Revolution as ambassador to Spain, and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris that secured British recognition of American independence; he later co-authored The Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, writing five of its eighty five essays. While chief justice, over a Supreme Court term that decided only four cases in six years, he also negotiated the highly controversial 1794 Jay Treaty with Great Britain, and as governor he signed New Yorks gradual emancipation law even though he continued to own slaves himself into 1800.