BAYARD, Nicholas, colonial official, born in Alphen, Holland, about 1644; died in New York city m 1707. He accompanied his widowed mother, sister of Governor Stuyvesant, to America, landing in New Amsterdam on 11 May 1617. His father, Samuel Bayard, who died in Holland, is believed to have been the son of a professor of theology in Paris, named Balthazar Bayard, who signed the articles of the Walloon synod in 1580, and fled from France to escape religious persecution. Mrs. Bayard, who was highly accomplished, practical, and energetic, instructed her three sons in the useful branches of education. The old Bayard mansion stood on the west side of the Bowery, and, with the surrounding premises, was, in 1798, con-vetted by a Frenchman named Delacroix into a popular resort, known as "Vauxhall Garden." The Astor Library is built on a part of the estate, originally consisting of some two hundred acres. The only other residences within sight in pre-revolutionary days were the DeLancey home, on the west side of the Bowery, and the residences of the Stuyvesants, to the north. Not far distant rose "Bayard's Mount," or, as it was called after 1776, "Bunker's Hill," from the fortifications on its summit. It was the highest elevation near the City, and afforded an extensive prospect.

In its neighborhood were also groves, the relics of what in Madame Bayard's time were known as Bayard's woods. The Dutch family Bible, a massive folio with clasp and corner-pieces brought from Holland, is in the possession of her descendent, Mrs. Jas. Grant Wilson, of New York. In 1664 Nicholas was appointed to the clerkship of the common council, and soon afterward he became private secretary to Governor Stuyvesant, and received the additional appointment of surveyor of the province. On 23 Nay, 1666, he married Judith Verlet, who in 1662 had suffered imprisonment as a witch at the hands of the Puritans of Hartford, Connecticut, and whose brother was married to his mother, widow of Samuel Bayard. After the re-conquest of New York by the Dutch in 1672, Nicholas Bayard became secretary of the province. Under the second English regime, in 1685, when Dongan was governor, Bayard was mayor of New York and a member of the governor's council, and drew up the Dongan charter that was granted in that year. In 1688 he received, at the head of the regiment of militia of which he was colonel, the restored Governor Andros. As one of the three resident members of the governor's council, and commander-in-chief of the militia of the province, he was the object of Leisler's hatred, and when the insurrection headed by the latter was in progress he fled to Albany to escape assassination. Returning to attend an only son on his sickbed, he was arrested and thrown into prison. He was nominated, with Nicolls, a councilor of Governor Sloughter, appointed by William III., and both were released upon the arrival of the new governor. When Lord Bellomont, who became governor in 1698, and several of the prominent men of the colony, were suspected of complicity in the piracies of Captain Kidd, Colonel Bayard went to England to clear himself of the imputation. Accused by the Leisler faction of a scheme to introduce popery and slavery into New York, as well as of piracy, he was tried for high treason before Chief-Justice Atwood and sentenced to death; but after the death of King William and the flight of the vindictive judge who had sentenced him, the proceedings were annulled by an order in council, and he was reinstated in his property and honors. A rare brochure, of which but two copies are known *one in the British Museum, the other included in the valuable Americana of Mrs. John Carter Brown, of Providence*was published in London in 1693. It is a "Journal of the Late Actions of the French at Canada," Colonel Bayard and his friend Lieut.-Colonel Charles Lodowick being the joint authors. The work was reprinted in New York in 1866.