New York Presbyterian Hospital

The hospital's origin can be traced to a 1769 commencement address by Samuel Bard, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh Medical School and professor of medicine, which was delivered to the first two medical doctors to graduate from King's College, now Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, titled “A discourse upon the duties of a physician, with some sentiments on the usefulness and necessity of a public hospital.” New York City leaders later pledged one thousand pounds sterling to the hospital's creation.[8]

Later the same year, on November 3, 1769, Peter Middleton reported on progress with the hospital's creation in another address to King's College, stating “the necessity and usefulness of a public infirmary has so warmly and pathetically set forth in a discourse delivered by Dr. Samuel Bard... that his Excellency, Sir Henry Moore immediately set on foot a subscription for that purpose to which himself and most of the gentlemen present liberally contributed.” [9] Soon thereafter, the new Governor of the Colony, John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore through the interposition of Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden started a fund for the establishment of such a hospital.