John Bubenheim Bayard (11 August 1738 – 7 January 1807) was a merchant, soldier, and statesman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He achieved the rank of colonel while serving with the Continental Army, and was a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Congress of the Confederation in 1785 and 1786.

Their father James was the youngest son of Samuel Bayard (1675–1721), who was born in New Amsterdam, and Susanna Bouchelle (1678–1750), both of French Huguenot ancestry.

[3] James Bayard was educated at West Nottingham Academy under the tutelage of the Rev.

He began making his own investments in shipping voyages, prospered, and became one of the leaders in the merchant community.

In 1765 Bayard signed the non-importation agreement in protest of the Stamp Act, even though it hurt his own business.

This group was originally the revolutionary counter to the official assembly, but eventually replaced it as the legislature for the new government.

In March 1777, he became a member of the state's Board of War, and the Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and was re-elected in 1778.

Under Pennsylvania's 1776 constitution this was a kind of combination of the roles of a governor's cabinet and the state Senate.

He was forced to sell the estate in Maryland to another branch of the family, and closed down his Philadelphia business.

Then, for many of his remaining years he sat as the judge in the court of common pleas for Middlesex County.

He died at home in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on January 7, 1807, and is buried in the First Presbyterian Churchyard there.

[7] In 1781, shortly after the death of his first wife Margaret, Bayard remarried, to Mary (née Grant) Hodgson (d. 1785).

[4] After Mary's death in 1785, Bayard married for the third and final time to Johannah White (d. 1834), sister of General Anthony Walton White (1750–1803),[4] sister-in-law of William Paterson (1745–1806),[11] and granddaughter of Lewis Morris (1671–1746), the Chief Justice of New York from 1715 to 1733 and Governor of New Jersey from 1738 to 1746.