An EXTRACT of the LIFE
OF THE LATE
Rev. Mr. David Brainerd,
Missionary to the Indians.
ADVERTISEMENT.
THOSE parts of the following history that are included between brackets thus [ ], are the words of the publisher, Mr. Jonathan Edwards, minister of Northampton in New-England, for the most part summarily representing the chief things contained in Mr. Brainerd’s diary: the rest is the account that he gives of himself in his private writings, in his own words.
PART I.
From his birth to the time when he began to devote himself to the study of divinity.
[MR. David Brainerd was born April 20, 1718, at Haddam, a town belonging to the county of Hartford, in the colony of Connecticut, New-England. His father, who died when he was about nine years of age, was the worshipful Hezekiah Brainerd, Esq. one of his Majesty’s council for that colony, and the son of Daniel Brainerd, Esq. a justice of the peace, and a deacon of the church in Haddam. His mother was Mrs. Dorothy Hobart, daughter to the Rev. Mr. Jeremiah Hobart, who preached awhile at Topsfield, and then removed to Hempstead, on Long-Island, and afterwards came and settled in the work of the [♦]ministry at Haddam; where he died in the 85th year of his age; of whom it is remarkable, that he went to the public worship in the forenoon, and died in his chair between meetings.
[♦] “ministy” replaced with “ministry”
Mr. David Brainerd was the third son of his parents. They had five sons and four daughters. The eldest son is Hezekiah Brainerd, Esq. a justice of the peace, and for several years past a representative of the town of Haddam, in the general assembly of Connecticut colony; the second was the Rev. Nehemiah Brainerd, a worthy minister at Eastbury in Connecticut, who died of a consumption November 10, 1742; the 4th is Mr. John Brainerd, who succeeds his brother David as missionary to the Indians, and pastor of the same church of Christian Indians in New-Jersey; and the 5th was Israel, late student at Yale-college in New-Haven, who died since his brother David.—Mrs. Dorothy Brainerd having lived several years a widow, died when her son David was about 14 years of age: so that in his youth he was left both fatherless and motherless. What account he has given of himself follows.]