John Brainerd (missionary)

John Brainerd was born on February 28, 1720, in Haddam, Connecticut, to Hezekiah and Dorothy (Mason) Brainerd, both of whom were devout Puritans. John was the youngest of six brothers, including David Brainerd, the famed missionary to the Indian nations in New Jersey to whom John was very close as brothers and in Christian fellowship.John graduated Yale University in 1746. No known surviving record of his college life and standing are extant.^[1] John had enrolled at Yale in 1742, the same year that his older brother David, then a junior, was expelled from the school for a critical comment he made about a teacher.^[2][3] The entire affair greatly affected the Brainerd family, and deeply saddened, causing great embarrassment for John. Upon learning of the incident John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church in America, thought David's termination at the college unjustified and extreme. In his biography, The Life of David Brainerd, he defended David and made the critical comment "Do those college authorities call themselves Christians?"^[2][4][5]

Brainerd's grandfather, Daniel Brainerd, emigrated from Exeter, England, in 1649, with the Wyllis family and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. Daniel married Hannah Spencer in 1664 and had eight children. The youngest son, Hezekiah, was the father of David and John Brainerd. With a party of about seven men went thirty miles below Hartford, and selected a tract of land twelve miles square on each side of the Connecticut River. They chose the name of Haddam for their new settlement,^[a] where Daniel built his home about two miles above the present village of Haddam;^[7]

Brainerd was married twice; his first wife, Experience Lyon, of New Haven, died in 1757, while John was serving with the Colonial Army. Their marriage produced two children who died in their first year. In 1764 he remarried Elizabeth Price of Philadelphia, who gave him a daughter. Because of Brainered's busy schedule during an unstable time in the midst of war, she lived alternatively at Mount Holly or with her relatives in Philadelphia.^[8] Brainerd's only daughter, Mary, was married on July 8, 1788 to Major John Ross (1752–1796), born in Mount Holly, who served in the Continental Army, beginning in 1776.^[9][b]

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

After graduating from Yale College, Brainerd was ordained as a Presbyterian minister on April 15, 1747. He was immediately invited by his brother David, whose heath was in steady decline, to become the pastor of the prominent and wealthy parish in North Hampton, Massachusetts, arriving there on October 7, 1747, two days before his brother died there.^[11]

When Brainerd's brother, David, died of Tuberculosis^[c] on October 9, 1747, John was compelled to assume his missionary duties among the Indian nations.^[12] Shortly thereafter two of his Yale friends and classmates, Elihu Spencer of Haddam, and Job Strong from Northampton, arrived to offer their assistance to John in his work at Bethel and among the six Indian nations in western New York. This included the nations of the Mohawk, Oneidas, Cayugas, among others ^[2]

Brainerd ministered to about 160 Native Americans then living in a settlement called Bethel,^[d] His house was situated at Lower Mt. Bethel, in what was then called the Forks North.^[13] Brainered often donated significant amounts of his own money into his missionary involvements, and never received nor expected any reimbursement. ^[14]

Fifty or more of the town's children had enrolled in the school that he established. To minister to other tribes in the greater area he would make long trips on horseback, using interpreters to teach the gospel. He encouraged them to move to the settlement in Bethel, where they could be under his pastoral care. Brainerd was also something of an itinerant preacher and established various “preaching points” where white settlers gathered to hear him preach. While laboring full-time among the Native Americans, John established seven churches for settlers and frequently visited seven other towns.^[15]

In 1757, upon the death of Reverend Aaron Burr Sr.^[e] president of The College of New Jersey,^[f] Jonathan Edwards received a request from the college's trustees to assume that position. Deeply divided between the prospect of being the college president and his call to his ministry, he sought the council and advice from ministers John Brainerd and Caleb Smith, who thought that John should accept the office. Still reluctant to make such a sudden change, Edwards nonetheless valued their advice and acquiesced to accepting the position. He became a trustee at the college in 1754; a position he retained until the year of his death.^[14] In 1758. At 34 years of age, Brainerd ultimately proved to be an influential delegate from the trustees that helped to secure Edwards' presidency to the college.^[16]

During the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, when the Colonial and British troops began to emerge in New Jersey in and around Brainerd's missionary involvements, he promptly offered his pastoral services and counseling that boosted the morale and spiritual well-being of the American soldiers and to the Indian nations under his care.^[3] On December 23, 1776, American militia forces were spotted by British scouts in and around Mount Holly,^[g] some 20 miles (32 km) south-east of Princeton. British troops and their Hessian mercenaries attacked and captured Mount Holly and began raiding the homes, abusing some of the settlers and foraging for supplies.^[17][h] Brainerd regarded the incursion as a merciless action and vociferously protested and made exclamations of patriotism, which further incited the troops into burning down his home and church.^[3][19][20]

At that point Brainered resolved that it was futile remaining at Mount Holly, while British and Hessians hostilities were still running high. As Brotherton was only 15 miles (24 km) away, he thought it best in retiring, until the hostilities passed.^[21] Subsequently, In 1777, at fifty-seven years of age, Brainerd moved from Brotherton to Deerfield Township, New Jersey, and presided over the church there, preaching to the Indians who attended his services. From 1778 to 1781, the Synod of New York and Philadelphia voted that ”the interest on the Indian fund be paid to Mr. Brainerd for his services among the Indians."^[22][20]

Rev. John Brainerd died at the age of 61 in Deerfield Township, in March 1781, where he was buried in the Deerfield Presbyterian Cemetery.^[2] His wife Elizabeth survived him by two years and died in 1783.^[8]

• Second Great Awakening — the period in which the Brainerd brothers served as missionaries
• Indigenous peoples of New Jersey
• Brainerd Mission – Christian mission to the Cherokee in present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee
• Brainerd missionay family
      David Brainerd (1718 – 1747)
      John Brainerd (missionary) (1720 – 1781)
      James Brainerd Taylor (1801–1829)
      Thomas Brainerd (1804- 1866)