A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time by Rose
1647. There were three brothers, Petrus, Balthazer and Nicholas; one
1633 words | Chapter 3
remained in New York, and became one of the most prominent men in that
city; one went to Baltimore and his branch gave senators to that city
for the last hundred years, among them the present United States
Secretary; and the other one went to England, giving numerous soldiers
of distinction to that country, among them Colonel Samuel Vetch Bayard
and Colonel John Bayard, brothers. Colonel Samuel Vetch Bayard had three
sons; one a captain in the army, was killed at the battle of Waterloo;
one a captain in the English navy, was murdered at Fordham, near New
York city; and the third son, Robert, the father of our subject, was a
lieutenant in the British army at the age of thirteen years, and was
allowed to proceed with his studies at Windsor, Nova Scotia, while his
father’s regiment was stationed at Halifax, N.S. He left the army and
graduated in medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1809, was a D.
C. L. of Windsor College, N.S., and for three years professor of
Obstetrics in the University of New York. When the war of 1812 was
declared against Great Britain, he was required to take the oath of
allegiance or leave the country. He chose the latter course, found his
way to Portland, Maine, left that city in an open boat, and arrived in
the city of St. John, N.B., in the month of May, 1813. From that city he
went to Halifax, N.S., and there married Frances Catherine Robertson,
daughter of Commissary Robertson, who was killed in the Colonial war
which commenced in 1775. Her grandfather was Colonel John Billop, who
owned a large part of Staten Island, near New York, and being a
Loyalist, his property was confiscated. He died in the city of St. John.
Dr. Robert Bayard practised his profession in Kentville, N.S., for
several years, and in 1824 removed to St. John, N.B., where he died in
June, 1868 at the advanced age of eighty-one years. He stood at the head
of his profession, and was a fluent speaker and an able writer. His son,
Dr. W. Bayard, when twelve years of age, was sent to a popular
educational institution, conducted by the Rev. William Powell, at
Fordham, near New York city, where he remained five years. He then
entered as a private student with Dr. Valentine Mott, the eminent
surgeon of New York, at the same time attending the medical lectures at
the College. While in Dr. Mott’s office he took high honours for
proficiency in anatomy. The next year he matriculated at the University
of Edinburgh, from which institution he received the degree of doctor in
medicine in 1837. He then walked the hospitals in Paris, and visited
many in Germany, and on returning to St. John, practised in company with
his father. He has since that time frequently visited the hospitals in
England, France and Germany. “His reputation for skill has,” says a
writer who has noted this gentleman’s career “almost from the start,
stood high, and of his profession he has made a brilliant success. He
has been greatly honoured, alike by the medical fraternity and his
fellow citizens generally, and it is safe to say, that no man in his
profession, in the Province, is held in higher esteem. There is not a
city or large town in the Province of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or
Prince Edward Island, to which he has not been called upon professional
business.” It may be said that the general public hospital in the city
of St. John owes its existence to the energy and perseverance of Dr.
Bayard. Prior to 1858 he brought the subject prominently before the
authorities, but no action was taken. He then endeavoured to obtain
money to build one by subscription, but finding that many of the most
wealthy men in the city refused to subscribe, he abandoned the idea, and
employed and paid a lawyer to draft an Act to assess the community for
the purpose. This bill he placed before the Legislature of the Province,
and with the assistance of Sir Leonard Tilley, Judge the Hon. John H.
Gray and other members of the House, got the bill passed granting power
to raise the funds required for the building, and the support of it. He
has been President of the Board of Commissioners since its establishment
in 1860. He is chairman of the Board of Health for the city and county
of St. John, having been appointed by the Government in 1855 to carry
out the Sanitary Act passed in that year. He was elected President of
the New Brunswick Medical Society for four years in succession,
resigning the situation in 1881. He was elected President of the Council
of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick in 1881, and resigned the
situation in 1885, not feeling justified in assuming the responsibility
of carrying out the Act, the Legislature having declined to pass
amendments to it required. He was appointed Coroner for the city and
county of St. John in 1839, resigning the situation in 1867. During his
tenure of office, there was but one coroner, now there are six with very
small increase of population. The above situations were unsolicited. Dr.
Bayard was at one time the New Brunswick editor of the _Montreal Medical
and Surgical Journal_, in which many interesting articles from his pen
may be found. The arduous duties of his profession compelled him to give
up the work. “He is regarded as a high authority on any branch of
medical science which he sees fit to discuss.” His address to the
Medical Society upon the “use and abuse of alcoholic drinks,” and his
lecture at the Mechanics’ Institute in St. John upon the “Progress of
Medicine, Surgery and Hygiene during the last one hundred years,” has
received high commendation. His politics are liberal-conservative. He is
a member of Trinity Episcopal church, and an exemplary man in all the
walks of life. The wife of Dr. Bayard was Susan Maria Wilson, daughter
of John Wilson, Esq., of Chamcook, near St. Andrew’s, in his day a large
ship owner and merchant, and one of the most enterprising men in the
county. It may be said that the St. Andrew’s and Woodstock railway owes
its origin to his energy. It was from him that Dr. Bayard received the
first telegram ever sent to St. John, as follows:—“To Dr. W. Bayard,
April 30th, 1851. Being the first subscriber to the Electric Telegraph
Company, I am honoured by the first communication to your city,
announcing this great and wonderful work God has made known to man, by
giving him control of his lightning. Signed, John Wilson.” Dr. Bayard
was married in the year 1844, and his wife died in the year 1876,
leaving no children. She was a woman of ability and fine social
qualities, always happiest when she had a house full of friends, and was
a splendid entertainer. She had wonderful energy as shown in attending
to the details of domestic life, in looking after the poor and
unfortunate, and in visiting the Home for Aged Women, the Protestant
Orphan Asylum, etc., etc. She was truly an angel of mercy, and her death
was nothing short of a calamity to the city. Dr. Bayard has not again
married.
* * * * *
=Stevens, Rev. Lorenzo Gorham=, A.M., B.D., Portland, St. John, was born
in Bedford, Mass., U.S.A., on 26th December, 1846, and is the eldest son
of Lorenzo Dow Stevens and Mary Gorham Parsons Stevens. His grandparents
on his father’s side were Abel Stevens, whose nephew, Abel Stevens,
D.D., LL.D., is one of the leading divines of the Methodist Episcopal
church in the United States; and Hadassa Mills, whose brother, Luther
Mills, was a distinguished graduate of Harvard University, in the class
of 1792. His father’s cousin, Edward Lewis Stevens, a graduate of
Harvard, of the class of 1863, and afterwards first lieutenant in the
44th Mass. Volunteer Militia, was killed at Boykin’s Mills, near Camden,
S.C., April 18th, 1865. His grandfather on his mother’s side was Wilhelm
Edlund, ship owner and merchant, born in Stockholm, Sweden. The brother
of this gentleman was private secretary to Gustavus III. His grandfather
left no male issue, and the name, so far as can be learned, is now
extinct in America. His grandmother, on his mother’s side, was Abigail
Hodges, daughter of Abigail Davis, who was cousin of Chief Justice
Parsons, of Massachusetts, and whose brother, Aaron Davis, served at the
battle of Bunker Hill, under Gen. Warren, and received a musket ball in
his thigh at the time. His mother’s grandfather, Joseph Davis, after the
early death of his wife Abigail, married Christina Greene, niece of Gen.
Greene, one of the Division Commanders under Gen. Washington. After
leaving the Francis St. grammar school, Boston, Lorenzo Gorham Stevens
entered the (Roxbury) Latin School, professor Buck, principal, where he
remained five years, graduating July, 1865. He then entered Harvard
University, and remained four years, graduating in the class of 1869.
His favourite studies in the college were the languages, history and
mental and moral philosophy. The year following his graduation he was
principal of the English department of the German-American School, in
Morrisania, New York. In September, 1870, he entered the Episcopal
Theological Seminary, Cambridge, Mass., and remained one year. The years
1872 and 1873 he spent in foreign travel, at the same time prosecuting
his theological studies. While in Berlin he attended at the University
the lectures of the celebrated Dr. Dörner. Mr. Stevens travelled as far
east as St. Petersburg, and as far north as Upsala, Sweden. After a most
enjoyable tour in which sight-seeing and study were about equally
combined, he returned to the Cambridge Seminary, and graduated June,
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