Background
William Jay was born in 1794 at Somersetshire, England, United Kingdom. He was the oldest son of a widely known dissenting preacher.
William Jay was born in 1794 at Somersetshire, England, United Kingdom. He was the oldest son of a widely known dissenting preacher.
In December of 1817 he sailed for America, and on arrival in this country settled in Savannah. An exponent of Greek Revival architecture, sometimes credited as the first to introduce the movement in the South, he had a wide and prosperous practice in Savannah, and built a number of houses in the period between his arrival and 1825, which in taste and refinement are masterpieces of design.
The finest of these homes are the Richardson-Owens residence on Abercorn St., 1816-19, the Scarborough house, 1818-19, the Wayne Gordon house, 127 East Oglethorpe Ave., a brick and stucco three-story mansion, (all still standing), and in addition he was architect of the Habershorn house, of beautiful proportions, the latter wrecked in 1916 to make way for the present Municipal Auditorium.
Two noteworthy public buildings in the city are also credited to him, the Savannah Branch of the U. S. Bank (razed in 1924), and the Telfair Academy of Arts & Sciences, the latter built about 1820.