BAYARD FAMILY, a remarlcable succes sion of American public leaders, statesmen and jurtsts, identified for two and a half centuries with the Middle States from New York to Maryland, and for a century and a quarter al most continuously in public service. They descended from a family of French Huguenot refugees, whose ancestor was a Paris theolog ical professor driven to Holland to escape perse cution about 1580. His son Samuel became a wealthy Amsterdam merchant and married the accomplished, energetic and capable sister (Anna) of Peter Stuyvesant, the last governor of the Dutch New Netherlands, who himself married Bayard's equally accomplished sister Judith, a great lady of her time. Samuel died in Holland; and his widow with her three sons accompanied her brother to Manhattan Island, where she took up an estate of 200 acres, in cluding the site of the Astor Library. Of these sons, Nicholas became secretary of New Netherlands and later of English New York, mayor, commander-in-chief of the colony's militia, and practically the head of the colony —a perilous honor which twice brought him to the verge of destruction. His brother Peter, however, though not personally con spicuous, became the ancestor of the distin guished Bayards of the 18th and 19th centuries. Peter's son Samuel joined the Labadists (see LABADIE, JEAN), a sect of communists other wise much like the Quakers, and removed to Maryland. Of his grandsons, Col. John was a leading Philadelphia merchant, patriot and soldier, representative in Congress, a county magnate in Maryland till after the Revolution, later judge and Federalist pillar; his son Samuel, lawyer, clerk of the Supreme Court, United States claim agent and judge, was one of the founders of the New York Historical Society and the American Bible Society. Col.
John's twin brother, Dr. James A., was father of James A., the noted Federalist statesman of Jefferson's and Madison's time, leader of the Federalists in the House of Representa tives, and the one whose vote gave the presi dency to Jefferson instead of Burr, senator and peace commissioner. The two sons of the latter James A., Richard H. and James A. (2d), were both United States senators of distinction from the State of Delaware, the one a Whig and the other a Democrat — the only instance of the kind in the United States history; the former also chosen chief justice of Delaware. The son of James A. (2), Thomas F., was also senator to succeed his father; so that father, two sons and grandson represented Delaware in the Senate 47 years between 1805 and 1f385. Thomas F. was further a member of the Electoral Coinmission of 1876, and Secretary of State under Cleveland. This unique record of distinguished public position is the more notable that it has been on the highest plane of public character as well as capacity — con spicuous for dignity, probity and scrupulous sense of those official propneties which shun the appearance of evil and therefore bar ont its reality.