Marriage Editorial Note
Marriage
In the spring of 1774, John Jay married and entered politics. At least one contemporary New Yorker, the Loyalist Thomas Jones, saw a link between the two events. According to Jones, Jay was the rejected suitor of two daughters of Peter De Lancey, a member of the family that led conservative forces in New York politics. In retaliation, Jones claimed, Jay “took a wife in . . . the Livingston [family], a family ever opposed to the De Lanceys, turned Republican, espoused the Livingston interest, and ever after opposed all legal government.”1 However, Jay had many ties with the Livingston family: his closest friend, Robert R. Livingston, was his future wife’s cousin; her father, William Livingston, was a fellow member of the Moot; and they had numerous friends in common.
John Jay could hardly be described as settling for second best in marrying Sarah Van Brugh Livingston. As to both family and personal charms, “Sally” seemed a prize worth winning. Her father, William, was one of the sons of Philip Livingston, second proprietor of Livingston Manor. For two decades, William Livingston, with John Morin Scott and William Smith Jr., formed the “triumvirate” of lawyers that kept the New York political kettle aboil by their opposition to Crown measures. Susannah French Livingston, Sarah’s mother, was the daughter of Philip French, a wealthy landowner of New Brunswick, New Jersey.2
Sarah Livingston’s gaiety and high spirits were a perfect complement to John Jay’s more reserved personality. In 1772, Livingston moved his family to Elizabethtown, New Jersey. The couple appear to have met in the winter of 1772–73, when Sarah came to New York City to visit relatives. Gouverneur Morris, a lifelong friend of the couple, described Sarah’s conquest of New York society in a letter written to her older sister Catharine:
What do you think Kitty—I have adopted Sally for my Daughter. Believe me I will pay her the same Attention I would were I really a Father. To tell you a Secret I have a great many who pretend to the Honor of being my Son in Law. . . . I would make you laugh nay laughing would not serve the Turn you must do more. One bending forwards rolling up his Eyes and sighing most piteously. Another at a Distance setting Side long upon his Chair with melancholic and despondent Phiz prolongated unto the seventh button Hole of his Waistcoat. A third his Shoulders drawn up to his Ears his Elbows fastened to his short Ribs his Brow wrinkled and the Corners of his Mouth making over his Chin a most rueful Arch. In the Midst of all this sits Miss with seeming Unconsciousness of the whole. One would be led to imagine she is unconcerned. I shall dispose of her before the Winter is out I believe provided Mamma has no objections. . . .3
John Jay’s proposal of marriage was accepted by January 1774, when he informed his family in Rye of his betrothal. Peter Jay immediately wrote to his son’s future father-in-law. John Jay and Sally Livingston were married on 28 April 1774. The ceremony took place at the Livingston family home, Liberty Hall, in Elizabethtown, New Jersey.4
1. History of N.Y. during the Rev. War, 2: 223.
2. For summaries of William Livingston’s pre-Revolutionary career, see Dorothy Rita Dillon, The New York Triumvirate (New York, 1949), and Milton H. Klein, The American Whig: William Livingston of New York (New York, 2003).
3. Gouverneur Morris to Catharine W. Livingston, 11 Jan. 1773, MHi: Ridley Papers.
4. See below, PJ to William Livingston, 31 Jan. 1774; Maria Eliza Philipse to SLJ, 1 July 1774, below; and New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, 9 May 1774. According to a letter of JJ’s to the Reverend Harry Munro, JJ’s brother-in-law, in the possession of Edward Floyd De Lancey, maternally a great-grandson of the Munros, JJ had asked Munro to officiate at the wedding ceremony. See , 2: 475.