He was the eldest child of Edmund Lincoln Baylies (1829–1869), a merchant and philanthropist,[2] and Nathalie Elizabeth Ray (1837–1912).

[3][4] He was the brother of Cornelia Prime Ray, who married Judge Francis Cabot Lowell; Walter Cabot Baylies,[5] a president of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company who married Charlotte Upham;[6][7] in 1888,[8] and Ruth Baylies.

Through his father's family, he was descended from Benjamin Lincoln, the Revolutionary War general and aide-de-camp to Washington,[3] and Thomas Baylies, who emigrated to the America in 1737.

[13] In 1896, he spoke before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce in support of the bill to establish a cable between the United States and the Hawaiian Islands.

[1] On January 18, 1887, Baylies was married to Louisa Van Rensselaer (1865–1945)[18][19] at St. Thomas Church in Manhattan.

[22] In 1919, he suffered from double pneumonia and traveled to the Virginia Hot Springs for recovery.

[24] The pallbearers included Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler, Gen. Cornelius Vanderbilt III, Stephen Baker, Walter W. Parsons, Henry Parrish, Allison V. Armour, Charles D. Wetmore, Henry B. Anderson, Frank Gray Griswold, and Frank L.