In fact, while he was absent, his friends had put him in nomination as Governor of New York. His election to that office occurred just two days before he arrived, and when he landed his senses were mystified by hearing loud hurrahs for "Governor Jay."
When his term of office expired he was re-elected, so he served as Governor, in all, six years. The most important measure carried out during that time was the abolition of slavery in the State of New York, an act he had strenuously insisted on for twenty years, but which was not made possible until he had the power of Governor, and crowded the measure upon the Legislature.
Over a quarter of a century had passed since John Adams and John Jay had met on horseback out there on the New Jersey turnpike. Their intimacy had been continuous and their labors as important as ever engrossed the minds of men, but in it all there was neither jealousy nor bickering. They were friends.
At the close of Jay's gubernatorial term, President Adams nominated him for the office of Chief Justice, made vacant by the resignation of Oliver Ellsworth. The Senate unanimously confirmed the nomination, but Jay refused to accept the place.
For twenty-eight years he had served his country—served it in its most trying hours. He was not an old man in years, but the severity and anxiety of his labors had told on his health, and the elasticity of youth had gone from his brain forever. He knew this, and feared the danger of continued exertion. "My best work is done," he said; "if I continue I may undo the good I have accomplished. I have earned a rest."
He retired to the ancestral farm at Bedford, Westchester County, to enjoy his vacation. In a year his wife died, and the shock told on his already shattered nerves.
"The habit of reticence grew upon him," says one writer, "until he could not be tricked into giving an opinion even about the weather."
And so he lived out his days as a partial recluse, deep in problems of "raising watermelons, and sheep that would not jump fences." He worked with his hands, wore blue jeans, voted at every town election, but to a great degree lived only in the past. The problems of church and village politics and farm life filled his declining days.
To a great degree his physical health came back, but the problems of statecraft he left to other heads and hands.
His religious nature manifested itself in various philanthropic schemes, and the Bible Society he founded endures even unto this day. These things afforded a healthful exercise for that tireless brain which refused to run down.