Desire for yr coming and preaching to 'em, and some others yt are older I think joyn with 'em. I entreat of you yt in Brotherly Love you would answer our request, and send me word when you intend to come yt I may warn a meeting. If you cant come till ye week after next, probably our Friend Buel and my Brother [David] will be here, & next Wednesday I design to preach at Hock-anum, so that day must be excepted. I trust, my dear Brother, you'll come, if you possibly can, & joyn forces with mine, & help me under my weakness & infirmities, and help gather in X's [Christ's] chosen here. There is, I trust, a great & effectual door opened to me, but there are many adversaries, especially in ye Town, where, I suppose, ye major part are rather opposing, & some are daring, hardy Soldiers of Satan indeed! Let us never forget each other & ye Ch. of X at ye throne of Grace. "I am yr sincere Friend & Br, "GLASSENBURY, Satur: July 17, or 18, 1741." "N. BRAINERD. Among his descendants we find the Hon. Nehemiah Brainerd, A.M., repeatedly a representative in the General Assembly of Connecticut, and deacon in the church, and General John Brainerd, of Haddam, who, by a donation of some fifteen thousand dollars, founded the "Brainerd Academy" in Haddam, and left two thousand five hundred dollars to the Congregational Church. Jerusha Brainerd, David's second sister, married Samuel Spencer, of Haddam, December 19, 1732. She died a little before her brother David, and the news was carried to him when he lay sick. in Boston. President Edwards says, "She was a sister between whom and himself (David) had long subsisted a peculiarly dear affection. But he had this comfort together with the tidings,—a confidence of her being gone to heaven." Martha Brainerd, third sister of David and John, married General Joseph Spencer, of East Haddam, a well-known major-general in the army of the Revolution.* * Of General Joseph Spencer, the brother-in-law of David Brainerd, and also descended from Isaac Spencer, Brainerd's great-grandfather, Dr. Smith, recently President of Marietta College, now of Buffalo, N. Y., said, in an obituary of Mrs. Martha Brainerd Wilson, of Marietta: Mrs. Wilson was the daughter of the late Dr. Joseph Spencer, of Vienna, Wood county, Va. He was the son of Major-General Joseph Spencer, who served with reputation with the rank of colonel in the Northern Army during the French War, was a brigadier-general in the Continental Army, and in 1776 was appointed a major-general of the American Army of the Revolution, which he resigned in 1778, and was elected a member of the Continental Congress,—a man whose character won an expression of high esteem from Washington, and whose deep-toned piety, with that of many of his compatriots, contributed much to throw around that fearful struggle the sacred sanction of religion. " ‘In 1794, Dr. Spencer, who had held the office of surgeon and aide to his father in the army, emigrated to the West, and, in company with the late Colonel Abner Lord, purchased a tract of land in Wood county, below Marietta, fronting five miles on the Ohio River. Dr. Spencer left a family of eleven children,-six sons and five daughters. Of these sons three still survive, -Messrs. William and Brainerd Spencer, of Vienna, and Mr. George Spencer, of Louisiana. Of the daughters only two-Mrs. General Cass, of Detroit, and Mrs. General Hunt, of Maumee-are still living. To the two deceased-Mrs. Wallace, wife of Rev. Matthew Wallace, of Indiana, and the late Mrs. Judge Nye, whose character and virtues are well remembered David Brainerd's history is already known, and John Brainerd's we are to give elsewhere. Elizabeth Brainerd, the youngest sister of David, and only ten years old when left an orphan, was married to David Miller, of Middletown, July 21, 1743. Their descendants, mostly residing in Northern New York, are numerous, and generally distinguished for moral worth. Israel Brainerd, David's youngest brother, shared in the piety of the family. He was a member of Yale College when summoned to Boston to see his suffering brother David. President Edwards says, "This visit was attended to Mr. Brainerd with joy, because he greatly desired an opportunity of some religious conversation with him before he died." In this interview the dying missionary gave a solemn charge to this younger brother to live a life of self-denial and devotedness to God. Among other things, he told him: "When ministers feel these, special gracious influences on their hearts, it wonderfully assists them to come at the consciences of men, and, as it were, to handle them; whereas without them, whatever reason and oratory we may make use of, we do but make use of stumps instead of hands."* in this community-it is now our melancholy duty to add the name of Mrs. Wilson." * Memoirs, pp. 243, 244. But Israel was not allowed to preach the gospel. He died the following winter, 1748, at New Haven. President Edwards describes him as an "ingenious, serious, studious, and hopefully pious person." The son of the writer, while in the Freshman class of Yale College in 1855, was sauntering through the graveyard of New Haven on a cold day in autumn, when his attention was attracted by a broken marble slab matted in the grass, with the inscription underneath. Some curiosity prompted him to lift the stone: and what was his surprise to read his own name of Brainerd upon it! He read the whole epitaph; "This stone was erected in memory of Israel Brainerd, a member of Yale College, who died January 6, 1748." It was the grave-stone of David Brainerd's youngest brother, Israel, above described. CHAPTER II. JOHN JOHN BRAINERD'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. OHN BRAINERD was born at the paternal home, the residence of his father, in Haddam, February 28, 1720. Concerning his childhood and youth we have very little certain knowledge.* We may, however, consider the circumstances around him, and estimate their influence in forming his character. In his seventh year he lost his father, in his twelfth, his mother. But before his mother's death his eldest brother Hezekiah was married to Mary, the daughter of Rev. Phineas Fisk, the clergyman of Haddam, and was settled in the family mansion. His elder brother, Nehemiah Brainerd, of Glastenbury, married Elizabeth, another of the Rev. Mr. Fisk's daughters. Two of his sisters, in 1732 and 1738, married, the one Samuel and the other Joseph (Major-General) Spencer, of East Haddam. With some one of these families, connected with him by the closest ties of blood, and all of the highest respectability and eminently religious, * Webster, in his "History of the Presbyterian Church," says John was born in East Haddam. This is a mistake: he was born in Old Haddam. |