Brainerd, John, 1720-1781

Presbyterian minister and missionary to the New Jersey Indians.

Born in 1720 in Bethel, Conn., John Brainerd graduated from Yale in 1746, and then began his missionary work, first sponsored by the Correspondents of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at the Bethel Indian settlement in Cranberry, N.J., 1747-1755, and later under the auspices of the Presbyterian Synod at Brotherton, N.J., from 1758 until at least 1768. In 1768 Brainerd moved to Bridgeton (Mt. Holly) where he built a congregation and a church, and during the Revolutionary War moved to a church in Deerfield, N.J., where he died in 1781.

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