John Jay Homestead State Historic Site

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The Dining Room at John Jay Homestead. The man in the portrait over the sideboard is Jay's grandfather, a Huguenot who came to New York in 1686 to escape religious persecution in France. The story of the Jay family's oppression in Europe had a powerful formative effect on John Jay, and is a major reason he became a Founding Father: he wanted to ensure that the United States would be a place of freedom.

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The Dining Room at John Jay Homestead. The man in the portrait over the sideboard is Jay's grandfather, a Huguenot who came to New York in 1686 to escape religious persecution in France. The story of the Jay family's oppression in Europe had a powerful formative effect on John Jay, and is a major reason he became a Founding Father: he wanted to ensure that the United States would be a place of freedom.