The second oldest of the uniquely American breeds, the Java was developed from birds imported from Indonesia and Asia in the early 19th century. Daniel Webster entered a pair of Javas in the Boston Poultry Show of 1849. Black, mottled, or, rarely, white, with a broad, deep body and a full breast, Javas were a common farm bird throughout the latter half of the 19th century, and an important market bird in New York and New Jersey.

The Java was important in the development of the Jersey Giant, and, by some accounts, the Barred Plymouth Rock. Ironically, the success of these breeds led to the near-extinction of the Java, as it was supplanted by the Jersey Giant in the market, and by the Barred Rock in the farmyard. In the 1990s, the Garfield Farm Museum in LaFox, Illinois, looking for Javas for their 1840s display farm, found just one small hatchery and five private breeders still raising the birds.