After a lifetime of public service, John Jay and his family retired to his farm in Bedford in 1801. Jay had been the chief negotiator of the Treaty of Paris, and had served as Chief Justice, Secretary for Foreign Affairs and as a two-term Governor of New York. Jay's wife, Sarah, died shortly after moving to Bedford and Jay never remarried. Upon John Jay's death in 1829, the farm and home were inherited by William Jay, John's second son. William Jay became a prominent leader of abolitionists, and the Homestead became a center in the anti-slavery movement.
