Brainerd, David

BRAINERD, DAVID: Missionary to the American Indians; b. at Haddam, Conn., Apr. 20, 1718; d. at the home of Jonathan Edwards (to whose daughter Jemima he was engaged), Northampton, Mass., Oct. 9, 1747. He entered Yale College in 1739 and was expelled in his junior year; it was the time of the Great Awakening and Brainerd, who was "sober and inclined to melancholy" from childhood, sympathized with the "New Lights" (Whitefield, Tennent, and their followers); he attended their meetings when forbidden to do so, and criticized one of the tutors as having "no more grace than a chair"; as a consequence he was expelled. He was licensed at Danbury, Conn., July 29, 1742; was approved as a missionary by the New York correspondents of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, Nov. 25, 1742, and labored among the Indians at Kaunaumeek (Brainerd, Rensselaer County, N. Y., 18 m. s.e. of Albany) Apr., 1743–Mar., 1744; was ordained as a missionary at Newark, N. J., June 12, 1744; ten days later began work at what was intended to be his permanent station, at the forks of the Delaware, near Easton, Penn.; in October he visited the Indians on the Susquehanna, and June 19, 1745, began to preach at Crossweeksung (Crosswick, 9 m. s.e. of Trenton), the scene of his greatest success. His life among the Indians was one of hardship and suffering borne with heroic fortitude and self-devotion; his health gave way under the strain and he relinquished the work, Mar. 20, 1747, dying from consumption. The portions of his diary dealing with his work at Crossweeksung (June 19–Nov. 4, 1745, and Nov. 24, 1745–June 19, 1746) were published before his death, by the commissioners of the Society (Mirabilia dei inter Indicos: or the rise and progress of a remarkable work of grace among a number of the Indians in the provinces of New Jersey and Pennsylvania; and Divine Grace Displayed: or the continuance and progress of a remarkable work of grace, etc., both published at Philadelphia, 1746, and commonly known as "Brainerd's Journal"). All of his papers, including an account of his early life and the original copy of his diary, were left with Jonathan Edwards, who prepared An Account of the Life of the Late Rev. David Brainerd (Boston, 1749), omitting the parts of the diary already published. The life and diary entire, with his letters and other writings, were edited by S. E. Dwight (New Haven, 1822) and by J. M. Sherwood (New York, 1884). His place as missionary was taken, at his request, by his brother John (b. at Haddam, Conn., Feb. 28, 1720; d. at Deerfield, N. J., Mar. 18, 1781). He was graduated at Yale, 1746. His work was hindered by disputes about title to Indian lands, war, and opposition from the Quakers; he was dismissed by the Society in Scotland in 1755, reengaged in 1756, again dismissed in 1757, and again asked to return in 1759; the funds provided by the Society and by the Synod of New York and New Jersey were insufficient, and he gave freely from his own scanty means; he served the whites no less faithfully than the Indians and was at the same time both foreign and home missionary; after 1777 he had charge of a church at Deerfield. Consult his life by Thomas Brainerd (Philadelphia, 1865).