THE TOWN OF NEW ROCHELLE. 



677 



This Church, which was formerly attached to the Bedford Presbytery, 

 is now in connection with the Presbytery of Westchester. 



In this part of the town are situated the property of Rev. Charles 

 Hawley, (the old Bayard estate,) and the late Matson Smith, M.D., now 

 occupied by his son Albert Smith, M.D. Dr. Matson Smith was a 

 native of Lyme, Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale College in 1787; 

 and was among the early settlers of the place, and for more than half a 

 century distinguished for his high professional skill and attainments, 

 being for many years president- of the Medical Society of Westchester 

 County. He was a man of strictly religious habits ; and, for some time, 

 a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church. 



A large portion of land, situated in this vicinity, constituted the old 



HOME OP JAMES P. HUNTINGDON, ESQ. 



Allaire estate, purchased by Alexander Allaire, the Huguenot, in 169 ij 

 letters of Denization, under the great seal of the province were granted 

 to Alexander Allaire, Aug. 5th, 1695. The ancestors of the Allaires 

 claim to descend from the famous Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, who 

 died in 1 1 1 8, and possessed a fair inheritance in France, at a very early 

 period. The more immediate ancestor of the family, however, was 

 Pierre Allaire Ecuyer, living at La Rochelle, in 1465. Among the pas- 

 tors of the French Reformed Church in 1637, was the Rev. "Paul Al- 

 lard, a Rocheller, minister of the Church of Sancerre." Sometime prior 

 to the revocation of the edict of Nantes, Alexander Allaire, fifth in de- 

 scent from the fore mentioned Pierre Allaire Ecuyer, who was born in 

 France in 1660, fled from La Rochelle to England, and soon after from 

 thence to America. He also owned the property now belonging to 



