Brainerd, David (1718-1747)

New England missionary to Indian

tribes of the middle colonies
• David Brainerd, the great missionary to the North
American Indians, was born in April, 1718 at Haddam,
Connecticut. His father, a legislator in Connecticut, died
when David was nine years old and his mother died
when he was fourteen. He lived with a godly aunt and
uncle until he was eighteen and then tried farming for a
year at nearby Durham, CT. Though growing up in the
local Congregational Church, Brainerd was converted at
age twenty-one and then studied at nearby Yale College.
He left after a few months with a recurring illness,
returning one year later at the height of the evangelical
revival at Yale under the preaching ministry of George
Whitefield.
• Brainerd served the Housatonic Indians near Stockbridge,
MA and several tribes at the Forks of the Delaware River
where hundreds were converted in a very brief time. After a
year or so near Lebanon, CT with the Iroquois Indians,
Brainerd began losing his battle with tuberculosis. He made
his way to the home of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards in May,
1747, where he died on October 10.
• Brainerd died at the age of just 29, having been a Christian
for only eight years and a missionary for only four years; yet
probably no one has had more influence on the modern
missionary movement than David Brainerd.