Judith Bayard, born c. 1610 in Breda, Noord-Brabant, then in the Spanish Netherlands, was living in 1645, a spinster, in the Amsterdam household of her brother Stephen. Stephen was the husband of Ann Stuyvesant, when General Petrus Stuyvesant, Ann’s brother, arrived having suffered an amputated right leg in battle in Curacao that refused to heal.

Judith took over as nurse and soon nurse and patient were in love. They married in August 1645 and in May 1647 arrived in New Amsterdam, she pregnant with their first son, Balthasar, and he appointed as Director General of the Dutch Colony of New Netherland under the authority of the Dutch West India Company. A second son, Nicholaes, soon joined the family.

 In 1664, after a long and eventful career as Director General of the Colony, Stuyvesant was forced to surrender it to the English. He returned to Amsterdam to explain the loss of the Colony to his superiors, while Judith remained to oversee life in their bowerie of 300 acres in the East Village today. He returned in 1667, and they spent his remaining years together until his death in 1672. Judith lived on until 1687.

Stuyvesant, Petrus (1610-1672), JACOB LEISLER’s next door neighbor, military commander and Dutch West India Company official; born Westellingwerf, Friesland, son of Reformed domine Balthasar Stuyvesant and Margaretta Hardenstein; University of Franeker, 1632; supercargo, Dutch West India Company, Brazil, 1635; commissary of stores, Fernando de Noronha and at Pernambuco, Brazil; transferred to Curaçao, 1639;  governor of Curaçao, 1643; lost a leg while leading expedition again St. Martin, 1644;  married Judith Bayard; director general of New Netherland, Curaçao, Bonaire, and Aruba, 1646-1664; died New York City, Feb. 1672.

See Wikipedia for more information on her family:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayard_family