History of Jay 
The Township of Jay is made up of three hamlets Upper Jay, Jay and Au Sable it was formed on
March 12,1797 from Mallory's  Bush.  Jay was named after governor John Jay at the time.

We are a beautiful valley to remember. " From this hill look down --" and they did, Mohawk and Algonquin Indians and Yankee pioneers, into the twin valleys through the Great Au Sable river alternately cuts its way deep into rock walled flumes and chasms, or deceptively quiet , meanders across wide intervals, paradise --green in summer. At the "Forks" the East branch joins the West for the16 mile rush to Lake Champlain.

Here , the Iroquois in centuries past , sojourned at favorite spots along the river, attested to by flint, chippings and arrowheads later found. They were the first fisherman, hunters and trappers. The names chosen by them for mountains, lakes, and falls, as well as elevated passes, awe inspiring in their wilderness majesty, were both poetic and suitable. Indian Pass, glimpsed with its flanking peaks, a wallface and McIntyre, south of North Elba on route 73, was known to them as He-no-do-aw-da, the path of the Thunderer, or Otneyarheh, Stonish Giants, and Ga-nos-ghah, Giants clothed in stone. It is Indian Pass that both the Hudson and the West branch of the Au Sable have their beginnings, the latter in Scott's ponds. The river we call Au Sable must have had an Indian name, lost today, but is to the French that we give credit for Au sable, "river of sand", probably derived from the fact the Great Au Sable empties into Lake Champlain through a branched , sandy delta.

Perhaps they did not know that the entire area had long ago been covered with an inland sea and that sandy terraces, varying in height, continue upstream to renowned Keene Flats, Englishmen who took over the Champlain valley from the French(1609-1759) doubtless knew the Au Sable in its lower reaches and certainly such early American surveyors as John Cockburn and Platts Rogers followed its source for miles. Cockburn complained at one time that good liquor bought near the river's mouth, had been stolen while he and his men were running lines in the forest. They stopped work to go for more!

follow these links to much more Jay Town History.