James Ashton Bayard (237)
Election date: 1768 (Elected to the American Society when it absorbed the membership of the Medical Society.)James Ashton Bayard (11 August 1738–8 January 1770) was physician and slaveholder, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1768 by way of his 1766 election to Philadelphia’s Medical Society. Born at Bohemia Manor in Maryland, Bayard later studied medicine under APS member Dr. Thomas Cadwalader. After Bayard completed his apprenticeship, he accepted the position of apothecary at Pennsylvania Hospital in 1758 but resigned after a year. He opened his own medical practice and participated in Philadelphia’s growing medical community, including his work alongside APS member Dr. John Morgan to form the Philadelphia Medical Society in 1766. He died just a few years later in 1770, followed by his wife in 1775. His brother, APS member John Bubenheim Bayard, adopted his children. (PI)