William Bayard Jr. (1761 – September 18, 1826) was a prominent New York City banker and a member of the Society of the New York Hospital. He was a close friend to Alexander Hamilton, who was taken to his

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

home after his famous duel with Aaron Burr, where Hamilton later died.

Life

Bayard was born in 1761 to Catharine McEvers (1732–1814) and William Bayard Sr. (–1804), who was elected as a delegate to the 1765

Stamp Act Congress The Stamp Act Congress (October 7 – 25, 1765), also known as the Continental Congress of 1765, was a meeting held in New York, New York, consisting of representatives from some of the British colonies in North America. It was the first gat ...

, and was assigned to the committee that drafted language opposing taxation without representation. When the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

broke out in 1775, his father remained loyal to the crown, assisting the British troops that occupied New York City in 1776. Although Bayard Jr. remained in New York after the war, other members of the family had fled, and many of the family's properties were confiscated. His siblings included Samuel Vetch Bayard (1757–1832) and Mary Bayard (1779–1849).

Family

Bayard was a member of the prominent

Bayard family The Bayard family has been a prominent family of lawyers and politicians throughout American history, primarily from Wilmington, Delaware. Beginning as Federalists, they joined the party of Andrew Jackson and remained leaders of the Democratic ...

French Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Beza ...

ancestry who descended from Balthazar Bayard, a French Protestant, who had taken refuge in the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

where the Huguenots found sanctuary from their religious persecution in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. The first Bayards in the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

arrived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam with the newly appointed Governor-General Peter Stuyvesant. In the early 18th century, the Bayards became among the largest landowners in the New York-New Jersey area. Bayard was also a descendant of

Stephanus Van Cortlandt Stephanus van Cortlandt (May 7, 1643 – November 25, 1700) was the first native-born mayor of New York City, a position which he held from 1677 to 1678 and from 1686 to 1688. He was the patroon of Van Cortlandt Manor and was on the governor' ...

and the Schuyler family.

Career

He founded the mercantile firm of LeRoy, Bayard & McEvers with Herman LeRoy and James McEvers. The firm was dissolved in 1816 after McEvers retired and was reorganized as Leroy, Bayard & Co. Bayard was director of the

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...

, president of

The Bank for Savings in the City of New-York The Bank for Savings in the City of New York (1819–1982) was one of the earliest banks in the United States and the first savings bank in New York City. Founded in 1816, it was first advertised as "a bank for the poor". It was merged with the Bu ...

from its beginnings in 1819, governor of the New York Hospital, trustee of the

Sailors' Snug Harbor Sailors' Snug Harbor, also known as Sailors Snug Harbor and informally as Snug Harbor, is a collection of architecturally significant 19th-century buildings on Staten Island, New York City. The buildings are set in an park along the Kill Van K ...

, member of the

New York Society Library The New York Society Library (NYSL) is the oldest cultural institution in New York City. It was founded in 1754 by the New York Society as a subscription library. During the time when New York was the capital of the United States, it was the de ...

, and one of the owners of the

Tontine Coffee House The Tontine Coffee House was a coffeehouse in Manhattan, New York City, established in early 1793. Situated at 82 Wall Street, on the north-west corner of Water Street,Nathans, p. 133 it was built by a group of stockbrokers to serve as a meeting p ...

. He was chairman of a meeting in December 1815 that drafted the petition for the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

and chairman of the celebration planning for the canal's completion in 1825. From 1801 until 1821, Bayard served as a

vestryman A vestryman is a member of his local church's vestry, or leading body.Anstice, Henry (1914). ''What Every Warden and Vestryman Should Know.'' Church literature press He is not a member of the clergy.Potter, Henry Codman (1890). ''The Offices of Wa ...

at Trinity Church. In 1824, he was chairman of the committee to receive General Lafayette in 1824.

Alexander Hamilton

He was a close friend to Alexander Hamilton and it was to Bayard's

home located just below the present Gansevoort Street, where the mortally wounded Hamilton was taken after his famous duel with Aaron Burr. Hamilton died in Bayard's home the next day.

Personal life

In 1783, Bayard married Elizabeth Cornell (d. 1854), daughter of Loyalist Samuel Cornell and Susannah Mabson, and a descendant of Thomas Cornell (). Elizabeth's father died in 1781 in British-controlled New York, having moved there from

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

after 1777 after refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance to the new

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Samuel Cornell had transferred a share of his North Carolina property to Elizabeth; in 1779, however, the

North Carolina Legislature The North Carolina General Assembly is the bicameral legislature of the State government of North Carolina. The legislature consists of two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The General Assembly meets in the North Carolina ...

voted to retroactively seize all property of Loyalists back to 1776. In November 1784, Mrs. Bayard unsuccessfully sued to have her property returned to her.Murphy, Elizabeth Burbank. Bayard, Elizabeth Cornell. NCPedia. 1979. http://ncpedia.org/biography/bayard-elizabeth Accessed April 5, 2015 William Jr. and Elizabeth had seven children, including: *Catherine Bayard (1786–1814), who married Duncan Pearsall Campbell (1781–1861), grandson of Duncan Campbell (d. 1758) *Susan Bayard (1787–1814), who married Benjamin Woolsey Rogers (1775–1859), son of Moses Rogers, a wealthy New York merchant who owned

Shippan Point Shippan Point (or Shippan) is the southernmost neighborhood in Stamford, Connecticut, Stamford, Connecticut, United States, located on a peninsula in Long Island Sound. Street names such as Ocean Drive West and Lighthouse Way reflect the neighbor ...

, and Sarah Woolsey, and a distant cousin descended from Thomas Cornell *William Bayard (1788–1875), who married Catherine Hammond *Maria Bayard (1789–1875), who also married Duncan Pearsall Campbell (1781–1861) *Eliza Justine Bayard (b. 1793), who married Joseph Blackwell *Robert Bayard (1797–1878), who married Elizabeth McEvers *Harriet Elizabeth Bayard (1799–1875), who married General Stephen Van Rensselaer IV (1789–1868), son of Stephen Van Rensselaer, both a distant cousin through the

Van Cortlandt family The Van Cortlandt family was an influential political dynasty from the seventeenth-century Dutch origins of New York through its period as an English colony, then after it became a state, and into the nineteenth century. It rose to great promin ...

. William died on September 18, 1826, in Westchester and along with his wife, Elizabeth, was buried in the Churchyard Cemetery of Trinity Church in lower

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Descendants

Bayard's granddaughter, Eliza Bayard Rogers (1811–1835), through his daughter Susan Bayard Rogers, married William Paterson Van Rensselaer (1805–1872), son of Stephen Van Rensselaer III, on May 13, 1833, in New York City. William P. Van Rensselaer was a half-brother to Stephen Van Rensselaer IV, the husband of Bayard's youngest daughter, Harriet E. Bayard. William and Eliza had one son together, William P. Van Rensselaer Jr. (1834–1854), before Eliza's death in 1835. On April 4, 1839, Van Rensselaer remarried to Eliza's sister, Sarah Rogers, with whom he had the rest of his children.

References

Notes Sources
''Archives of the General Convention''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bayard, William

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

1761 births 1826 deaths American people of Dutch descent Schuyler family Businesspeople from New York City American bankers People of the Province of New York Colonial American merchants Burials at Trinity Church Cemetery 19th-century American merchants