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Bayard, William, M.D., Edin., St. John, New Brunswick, was born in Kentville, Nova Scotia, on the 21st day of August, 1814. The ancestors of our subject were Huguenots, and directly connected with the family, represented by the famous knight, “sans peur et sans reproche,” whose coat of arms is carried by them to this day. Having been driven from France, they landed in New Amsterdam, now New York, in the month of May, 1647. There were three brothers, Petrus, Balthazer and Nicholas; one 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.