From the day when he was appointed to the First American Congress, in 1774, to the year 1801, when he retired from public life to enjoy wellearned rest at Bedford, in this county, his career was of usefulness and patriotic devotion. Chief justice of New York from 1777 to 1779, President of Congress, minister plenipotentiary to Spain in 1779, a signer of the definitive treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783, chief justice of the United States in 1789 and minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain in 1794, he rendered the most eminent services to the

, 8 Barber, Hist. Coll. of N. Y.

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

government he had helped to form. He closed his Ijnblic career as Governor of the State of New York, from 1795 to 1801. He died full of years and honor, May 17, 1829. The following entry appears in the record of the Court of Common Pleas of Westchester County, under date of May 25, 1829 : " The court and members of this bar, entertaining the highest respect for the pure and exalted character of the late venerable John Jay, do resolve that we will wear crape upon the left arm for thirty days in token of our respect." Ability, firmness, patriotism and integrity^-- all that go to make man great, -- he possessed in an eminent degree ; and, better' still, he was, as the last lines of his epitaph recite, "in his life and in his death, an example of the virtues, the faith and the hopes of a Christian."