National Archives Comes Alive! Young Learners Program: Meet John Jay

National Archives Museum
Online

Phil Webster will portray John Jay, one of the nation’s founding fathers. A delegate of the First Continental Congress, and later a member of the provincial Congress, he eventually became president of the Continental Congress. Jay was responsible for writing New York’s first Constitution. He served as a diplomat during the Revolutionary War and then authored five essays in the Federalist Papers in support of the U.S. Constitution. Many of his papers are searchable in Founders Online. Jay was appointed first Chief Justice and served from 1789 to 1795. He negotiated the Jay Treaty of 1794 with Great Britain to settle lingering grievances from the Revolutionary War. He was an attorney, and diplomat, and helped maintain neutrality for the new nation of the United States.