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In 1755 he was sent to a boarding school at New Rochelle, N.Y., kept by Pastor Stoupe, of the French Huguenot church. He was graduated at King's (Columbia) College, New York City, in 1764; studied law in the office of Benjamin Kissam, and in 1768 was admitted to the bar.

Upon the receipt of the news that the Boston port-bill had passed, Jay became conspicuous as a member of the New York committee of fifty-one to correspond with the other colonies. As a member of the first Continental congress he is credited with being the author of the address prepared by the committee of three appointed by that congress in September, 1774, to the "People of Great Britain," which Jefferson declared to be "a production certainly of the finest pen in America." He was also a member of the second Continental congress which convened in Philadelphia, May 10, 1775, and he drafted the "Address to the people of Canada and of Ireland." As a member of the congress he was appointed a member of the secret committee, Nov. 29, 1775, "to correspond with friends in Great Britain, Ireland and other parts of the world." While attending this congress, his presence was requested by the New York convention, which met in New York city, May 14, 1776; adjourned to White Plains, July 9, 1776, and on Jay's motion that convention unanimously approved of the Declaration of Independence, received from congress on the eve of the adjournment of the convention. The convention, re-assembled at Harlem, was driven successively to Fishkill, Kingston, and finally to Poughkeepsie, and Jay was in daily attendance. On Aug. 1, 1776, he was made chairman of a committee of thirteen to prepare a plan for instituting and framing a form of government, which was ratified, Aug. 26, 1776, but did not receive the action of the committee until the following spring. It was discussed and adopted, April 20, 1777, only a single negative vote being cast, and it was proclaimed by the secretary in front of the court-house at Esopus, N.Y., without being submitted to the people, on account of the disturbed condition of the country. The committee provided a general election, organized a judicial system, and gave to the "Council of Safety" the supreme power to carry on the government in the interim. Jay was appointed chief justice, with Robert R. Livingston as chancellor.

On the withdrawal of Vermont from the jurisdiction of New York, the presence of Jay was demanded in the Continental congress. He was elected by the legislature in October and commissioned by the governor, Nov. 18, 1778, to hold the office till March 3, 1779, and no longer. He took his seat, Dec. 7, 1778, and three days later he was elected president of congress, which position made him chief executive of the confederated states. On Sept. 28, 1779, he was elected by congress minister plenipotentiary to Spain. On his arrival, in 1780, he received no official recognition, as the government of Spain was not disposed to recognize American independence. While in Spain he was added to the commission to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain, and was summoned to Paris to co-operate with Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Henry Laurens. The position of the commissioners was complicated, as congress, urged by Luzerne, the French minister at Philadelphia, had modified the instructions originally given to the commissioners, and had instructed them "to make the most candid and confidential communications upon all subjects to the ministers of our generous ally, the King of France; to undertake nothing in their negotiations for peace and truce, without their knowledge and concurrence, and ultimately to govern yourselves by their advice and opinion," and on Aug. 6, 1782, matters were further complicated by the presentation of a commission to Jay and Franklin by Richard Oswald,who had already held conversations with Franklin by authority of Lord Shelburne. That commission authorized him to treat with the colonies concerning peace and this developed a difference of opinion between the commissioners. Franklin had hoped to secure the end, while Jay was disinclined to treat unless the new government was recognized. The British cabinet was unfavorable to Jay's view and negotiations were suspended. On hearing of the departure for England of a secret emissary from Vergennes under an assumed name, and after gaining knowledge of the rights to be denied, Jay, without the knowledge of Franklin, prepared a list of considerations for the British ministers, setting forth: 1. That as Britain could not conquer the United States, it was for her interest to conciliate them; 2. That the United States would not treat, except on an equal footing; 3. That it was the interest of France, but not of England, to postpone the acknowledgment of independence to a general peace; 4. That a hope of dividing the fisheries with France would be futile, as America would not make peace without them; 5. That any attempt to deprive the United States of the navigation of the Mississippi or of that river as a boundary would irritate America; and, 6. That such an attempt, if successful, would sow the seeds of war in the very treaty of peace; and he dispatched Benjamin Vaughan to England to counteract Rayneval's adverse influence. Vaughan presented the considerations, and a new commission was drafted authorizing Oswald to treat with the "United States" of America. Vaughan returned with the commission, Sept. 27, 1782, and it was presented to Oswald, Oct. 5, 1782, and this practically closed the treaty.

On his return to New York in July, 1784, Jay found that he had been chosen by congress secretary of foreign affairs, which post he held till the establishment of the Federal government in 1789, when President Washington offered him his choice of the Federal offices in his gift. He accepted that of chief justice of the U.S. supreme court, and took office in the spring of 1790. From 1784 to 1790 he was regent of the University of the State of New York. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of New York against George Clinton in 1792. He was sent from Paris as special envoy to Great Britain and signed the treaty of peace known as "Jay's Treaty," Nov. 19, 1794, which was denounced most bitterly by the Jefferson party. During his absence in Great Britain in the spring of 1795, he was elected governor of New York, his opponent being Robert Yates, who was supported by the Clinton party. Washington desired that he should remain in London, and offered him the position of minister resident in place of Pinckney, which offer he declined. He was notified of his election on his arrival in New York, where he was received with demonstrations of enthusiasm, and he resigned his seat as chief justice in the summer of 1795, and assumed the executive office. He was re-elected in April, 1798, and at the close of his second term he refused to accept re-nomination. He also declined the chief-justiceship of the supreme court, to which he had been appointed by President Washington and confirmed by the senate, having decided to retire from public life. The closing quarter of a century of his life was spent at his country seat in Bedford, Westchester county, N.Y. His last office was that of president of the American Bible society. He received the degree of LL.D. from Columbia and from Harvard in 1790; from Brown in 1794, and from the University of Edinburgh in 1792. His name, with thirty-six others, made up the list of "Class M, Rulers and Statesmen." eligible for a place in the Hall of Fame, New York university, and received, in October, 1900, twenty-five votes, standing fifteenth in the class, fifty-one votes being necessary to secure a place. See Life of John Jay, by his son, William Jay (1833), and by Henry B. Renwick (1841), and Life and Times of John Jay, by William Whitelock (1887).²

He graduated from Muhlenberg's Institute, Flushing, Long Island, New York, in 1832 and from Columbia College in 1836, and was admitted to the bar in 1839. Like his father he opposed slavery, and he advocated the cause of St. Philip's coloured church, which after nine years of struggle was admitted to the Protestant Episcopal convention. In 1847 he was secretary of the Irish Relief Society and was in that and subsequent years counsel for many fugitive slaves. He organized the meetings held in the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, resulting in the state convention at Saratoga, 10 August 1854, and in the formation of the Republican party upon the dissolution of the Whig party in 1855. He was elected president of the Union League club in 1866 and re-elected in 1877. He was state commissioner for the Federal cemetery at Antietam in 1868 and made a report to Governor R. E. Fenton on the chartered right to burial of the Confederate dead of that campaign. He was U.S. minister to Austria in 1869-75, and advanced the interests of the United States at the World Fair of 1873. He was chairman of the Jay Commission to investigate the system of the New York custom house in 1877, and was Republican member of the state civil service commission in 1883 and subsequently its president. He was manager of the New York Historical Society and a founder and first president of the Huguenot Society in 1855.

Hobart conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1889, and he received the same degree from Columbia in 1891. He is the author of: The Dignity of the Abolition Cause as Compared with the Political Schemes of the Day (1839); Emancipation in the West Indies (1842); Caste and Slavery in the American Church (1843); America, Free or Slave? (1856); Statistics of American Agriculture (1858); The Proxy Bill and Tract Society (1859); Great Conspiracy (1861); Letter on the Monroe Doctrines (1863); Letter to the American Anti-Slavery Society (1864); The Great Issue (1864); and pamphlets on The Church and the Rebellion; Rome in America; The American Foreign Service; The Sunday School a Safeguard to the Republic; The Fisheries Question; The Public School a Portal to the Civil Service; The Passage of the Constitutional Amendment Abolishing Slavery, and other subjects.¹

He was prepared for college at the Columbia Grammar School, conducted by Dr. Charles Anthon, and graduated from Columbia College, A.B., 1859.
     In April, 1861, he was appointed volunteer aide-de-camp on the staff of Maj.-Gen. John E. Wool; was commissioned captain in August, 1861, and served as aide-de-camp to Gen. George Morrell; to Gen. George G. Meade, of the 5th corps, Army of the Potomac; to Gen. George Sykes, who succeeded Meade in command of the 5th corps, and again to General Meade after he had assumed command of the Army of the Potomac. He participated in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, in the Wilderness campaign, in the siege of Petersburg and in the pursuit of Lee's army, and was present at the surrender at Appomattox. He was twice brevetted for gallant and meritorious conduct. He resigned from the service when the volunteer army was disbanded in 1865, having attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
     On returning to New York he was graduated from the Columbia Law School, LL.B., 1867, was admitted to the bar in 1868, and practised in New York city in partnership with Edgar S. Van Winkle and Flamen B. Candler, 1868-82, and after Mr. Van Winkle's death continued the partnership with Mr. Candler. Upon the death of his father, May 5, 1894, he inherited the ancestral estate, Bedford House, at Bedford, Westchester County, New York, which had descended to his great grandfather through Mary Van Cortlandt, her great great grandmother.¹

Kennon Jayne, age 88, a lifelong resident of New Canaan died Monday, June 30, 2014 in Norwalk Hospital with his loving family by his side. Kennon was born March 25, 1926 in New York City, he was the son of the late John and Dorothy Sewall Jayne. Kennon was the husband of Sabra Toulson Jayne.
As a boy, Kennon attended Fay and Choate School and graduated from Williams College in 1948. In his early adult years Kennon served as a Lieutenant in the US Navy at the end of World War II and during the Korean War as a signal operator. In 1952, he received an honorable discharge and began his civilian life, married Sabra Toulson in 1957 and started his career at IBM as a Marketing Manager. Kennon was a very active member in the New Canaan community volunteering his time and raising funds for the YMCA, United Way Foundation, Waveny Care Center and Staying-Put, to name a few. He was a very active and distinguished member within the St. Marks church community.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by four sons, John T. Jayne and his wife Karen of Littleton, Mass, Truxtun Sewall Jayne and his wife Christina of Seattle, WA, Joseph K. Jayne and his wife Sibyl of Needham, MA and Houston Jayne and his wife Jennifer of Menlo Park, CA, one sister Pamela Miller of Greenwich, CT and six grandchildren, Hannah, Joe, Maxwell, Sam, Madeleine, and Helen. Kennon was predeceased by his son William M. Jayne.
Interment will be held in the family plot in Bath Maine. A Memorial Service will be held at St Marks Church, Oenoke Ridge, New Canaan CT on Saturday, September 13,2014 at 11:00AM. http://www.hoytfuneralhome.com July 2014.³