USA > Connecticut > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex county, Connecticut, with biographical sketches of its prominent men > Part 103
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Venture was then 31 years of age, and by his great industry and frugality he earned his freedom in the succeeding five years, and for which he paid Col. Smith £71 and 2 shillings, besides paying for the privilege of working away. In this period he worked awhile on Long Island, where, in six months, he cut and corded 400 cords of wood, and threshed 75 bushels of grain.
His next ambition was to purchase the freedom of his wife and his three children, which he eventually accom- plished, besides buying the freedom of three other men. In about 1778, when 49 years of age, he disposed of his property on Long Island and moved to East Haddam, where he worked for several persons, among whom were Timothy Chapman and Abel Bingham. Anecdotes of his renown here as a wood-chopper are still current. While here he purchased land on Haddam Neck, near Salmon River Cove, and just below and opposite the mouth of Moodus River, to which he soon removed, and made subsequent purchases of land adjoining, until he owned over one hundred acres of excellent land and three dwelling houses.
During his residence at Haddam Neck, he owned, at different times, of boats, canoes, and sail vessels, twenty or more. These he employed mostly in fishing and trafficking, often cheated by those with whom he traded taking advantage of his ignorance of numbers. Not- withstanding he was often wronged, he maintained his own integrity, and left a name for truth and uprightness that was never tarnished, and of which he was ever proud.
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
I. his later years he became almost blind, and was led abou. by a grandchild. , His autobiography, as related by himself, and clothed in appropriate language by a citizen of East Haddam, was first published in 1798, when he was 69 years of age, appended to which was a certificate of his high character, dated November 3d 1798, and signed by Nathaniel Minor Esq., Elijah Pammer Esq., Captain Amos Palmer, Acors Sheffield, and Ed- ward Smith, citizens of Stonington, Conn.
This was reprinted in 1835, copies of which are now so scarce it is hoped that some of his descendants will publish another edition. Venture died a few years after the publishing of his narrative.
Venture died September 19th 1805, in the 77th year of his age, and was buried in the cemetery by the Con- gregational church. The following inscription is copied from his tombstone:
" Sacred to the memory of Venture Smith, African, though the son of a King, he was kidnapped and sold as a slave, but by his industry he acquired money to pur- chase his freedom who died Sep. 19th 1805 in ye 77th year of his age."
"Sacred to the memory of Marget Smith relict of Venture Smith who died Dec. the 17th A. D. 1809, in the 79th year of her age."
It is said that as the pallbearers were carrying the body of Venture to his burial, a distance of some three miles from his late home on the Neck, to the cemetery at the Congregational church in East Haddam, they felt the heaviness of their load so much (Venture was a very large and heavy man) as to cause one of them to remark, "We ought to have gone twice for our load."
PROMINENT MEN.
THE BRAINERD FAMILY.
The Brainerds in America are descended from Daniel Brainerd, one of the proprietors of Haddam. No at- tempt is known to have been made to connect him with any family line in England. Undoubtedly he came, as a child, with some relatives who were emigrating from Es- sex or Warwick county, to Massachusetts Bay. Very complete records of emigration were kept for the period which embraces the time of the boy's arrival in America. When about eight years old, in 1649, he was brought to Hartford, and lived in the family of Governor George Wyllys, who had in 1636, purchased a property which in- cluded the land on which the Charter Oak grew, and had occupied it in 1639. Wyllys became governor of Con- necticut in 1642, and died in 1644.
Spencer, of Lynn, Massachusetts, who afterward re- moved to Haddam, and subsequently married one Han- nah Sexton, Seven sons and one daughter were the fruit of the first marriage, and the only children of Daniel Brainerd. He died April. 11th 1715, and is buried in the old burying ground in the centre village of Haddam. The children of Daniel Brainerd were Daniel, Hannah, James, Joshua, William, Caleb, Elijah, and Hezekiah.
Daniel and Joshua located in what is now East Had- dam; William, in what is known as Haddam Neck; James, Caleb, Hezekiah, and Elijah, remained on the west side of the Connecticut River, in the present town of Haddam. The only daughter, Hannah, married George Gates, one of the proprietors, and also dwelt on the west side of the river.
The descendants of Daniel Brainerd settled in Ver- mont, in Central and Western New York, and in various parts of Connecticut, but many of them remained in Had- damn; so that Dr. Field, in his genealogy, says, that when he settled in that town the descendants bearing the fam- ily name " were more numerous in the congregation and in the schools than those of any other settler."
The Brainerds of Haddam are. almost all thrifty, in- dustrious, sober landholders, holding to the Calvinistic doctrines and Congregational church order of their an- cestor.
The most eminent of these descendants was David Brainerd, the Indian missionary, who died October 9th 1747, aged 29 years and 6 months. His qualities of head and heart won the regard, admiration, and affection of so great a man as Jonathan Edwards. Miss Yonge in her book, "Pioneers and Founders," calls him the "Enthusiast." Dr. Sherwood, in his edition of the life Brainerd, just published, says:
" No eulogy can exalt such a man. The simple story of his life proves him to be one of the most illustrious characters of modern times, as well as the foremost mis- sionary whom God has raised up in the American church -one whose example of zeal, self-denial, and Christian heroism has probably done more to develop and mould the spirit of modern missions, and to fire the heart of the Christian church in these latter days, than that of any other man since the apostolic age. One such per- sonage, one such character, is a greater power in human history than a finite mind can calculate."
John Brainerd, David's younger brother, took his place in the Indian Mission, and carried on the work he began, and was hardly inferior to his elder brother in the great qualities which go to make up the missionary character.
Many of Daniel Brainerd's descendant's have attained to considerable position in the land.
Jeremiah Gates Brainerd was for twenty-three years a
7th of January 1836. His eldest son, William F. Brain- erd, of New London, was a prominent lawyer, and quite famous as a wit and an orator. He died April 27th 1844. His second son, Dyar Throop, was an eminent physician, and lived to a very advanced age. His third son, John G. C., is of fame as a poet, occupying, it is
The Brainerd boy grew to manhood in his family, and justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut, dying the when 21, in 1662, became one of the twenty-eight origi- nal proprietors of the old town of Haddam. . He is de- scribed by Dr. Field, as a prosperous, influential, and very respectable man; a justice of the peace, and a dea- con in the church, and the largest landholder in the town. He married Hannah Spencer, a daughter of Garrard
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HADDAM-BIOGRAPHIES
said by critics, a very high rank in the second class of American poets. He died in 1828, at the age of 32. Mary, a daughter of William F., and now living in New London, seems to possess much of the poetical talents which her uncle exhibited.
Many of these people served in the Revolutionary war, both in the army and on board privateers, but it does not appear that any one rose above the rank of captain.
Daniel Brainerd was an eminent medical professor and surgeon in St. Louis, and subsequently in Chicago, where he held high appointments in surgical institutions. He died quite recently.
Thomas Brainerd was a foremost clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, long settled in Philadelphia, famous as a faithful preacher and pastor, eminent as a platform speaker, and a leader in patriotic effort during the war of the Rebellion.
Lawrence Brainerd was well known as a thriving farmer and merchant at St. Albans, Vermont, where he accumulated a large estate. He was prominent as a leader in the anti-slavery movement, and at one time repre- sented his State in the United States Senate. He died shortly after the close of the late Civil war.
Silas and Erastus Brainerd, brothers, acquired both prominence and wealth as the owners of one of the largest sandstone quarries in the country, at Portland, Connecticut.
Other members of this large family were known as jewelers in New York, and are now represented in that business by Amasa Brainerd.
Jeremiah Brainerd, of Rome, New York, had great reputation in the days of the building of the Erie Canal, as a builder of bridges, an inventor, and a natural civil engineer.
Rev. John Brainerd, D. D., now a comparatively young man, is a prominent minister in the Episcopal Church.
In local fame Ezra Brainerd, who resided in Haddam Neck, is entitled to the first place. . Born 17th of April 1744, in early manhood he became manager of the quar- rying interests near him, which some became large and important. He was a deacon in the Middle Haddanı church for 66 years, a justice of the peace for very many years, and for a long series of years represented the town in the General Assembly, and acquired to a universal degree the confidence of his associates.
Perhaps the best known member of this family, who still retains an active interest and home in Haddam, is Cephas Brainerd, of New York, the sixth in direct descent from Daniel Brainerd, and the son of Cephas Brainerd, of Haddam, Connecticut. He was born in that place, September 8th 1831. His education was ob- tained at the schools in his native town, which he attended each winter until his 18th year, spending the summers in labor on the farm.
of Blackstone. By a rigorous method, he made himself master of the elementary books placed in the hands of law students. After two years' practical training in New York, in the office of the late Chief Justice Curtis, he was admitted to the bar in September 1855, and shortly after became managing clerk in the office of the Hon. Truman Smith and Mr. Ebenezer Seeley, and soon acquired an interest in their business. In 1860, he engaged in business alone, though retaining offices with Mr. Seeley until his death in 1867. He won at first, and held until the last the confidence and warm personal interest of those two men, one perfect in his mastery of the law and the other inexhaustible in the personal resources of the advocate and debater, and to his association with them is due in great measure his own professional character. While holding for a short time the office of arbitrator of the Mixed Court under the slave trade treaty with Great Britain, his attention was turned to international law, for the study of which he acquired and has always since had a strong liking.
His success and position in the legal profession is best determined by the nature and importance of the interests entrusted to his care. Some of the matters in which he has been professionally concerned may be noted here. In September 1864, with Mr. James S. Stearns, a former fellow student, acting as counsel for the Merchants' Re- lief Committee of the city of New York, and represent- ing the claims of one thousand negroes whose property had been destroyed by the rioters in July 1863, they sub- mitted an argument which was the basis of the opinion of the court sustaining the constitutionality of the law imposing upon cities the responsibility for damages oc- casioned by rioters. He was associated with Hon. Ly- man Tremain and Mr. John R. Dos Passos in the second trial of Edward S. Stokes for the murder of James Fisk jr., and in the appeals which were subsequently taken, and in the third trial which followed.
His first appearance before the United States Supreme Court was as junior counsel with Truman Smith. The case involved very important questions of law, and suc- cess was the gratifying result of the first efforts of the young man, and the last of the old before that high tribunal.
He appeared before a committee of the State Legis- lature to advocate a reorganization of the public school system in New York city, which, though rejected then, has since been in substance adopted. He has also ap- peared in behalf of grave interests before committees of Congress. Once in the efforts made by the merchants of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, to abolish the system of informers in connection with the custom houses, he was one of the counsel for the committee of the Chamber of Commerce of New York. He made an argument, subsequently printed and entitled " Book Seizures, Moieties and Informers Indefensible." Congress adopted the recommendations made by the merchant committees.
· At the age of 19, he entered upon a course of historical and general reading tending toward the line of specific study which was necessary for entering the profession of After a ten years' struggle, in which he has borne a the law. The year following he began a thorough study prominent part, making five oral arguments and printing
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
six, Congress decided that the claims of those for whom he appeared-upon the Geneva award-uninsured ship owners, whose vessels were destroyed, rebel cruisers not found culpable by the Geneva Tribunal, were superior to those of non-premium payers, while the claims of the insurance companies, who received large premiums to cover war risks, were rejected.
While thus attending to professional duties, Mr. Brain- erd found time for philanthropic labor. He was for 27 years superintendent of the Sunday school of the Seventh Presbyterian Church in New York. For ten years he was connected with the New York Prison Asso ciation, as one of its managers and its recording secre- tary.
The best service he has rendered in this connection has been in the Young Men's Christian Association. Joining the society in the second year of its existence, and receiving through its agency the divine impulse which made him an active and pronounced Christian man, he has rendered to it in return a service, the value and extent of which can hardly be over estimated. He has been one of the most active, efficient, and self-deny- ing of the directors of the New York Association since 1857, when he became a member of the board. But he has rendered a far wider service to this Christian work for young men. In 1865, he was chosen president, for that year, of the International Convention of Young Men's Christian Associations. In 1866, he was elected a member of the executive committee of that convention, becoming, in 1868, its chairman, a position of high re- sponsibility he has held ever since. At that time, the committee, consisting of five members, all residing in New York, was the agent of some sixty-five societies, which were expending but a few thousand dollars annu- ally. It now has thirty-three members distributed throughout the leading cities of the continent, and is the agent of 850 societies, which require in their work over $600,000 per year. Then the committee expended a few hundred dollars yearly; in 1884, the convention entrusted it with a many-sided work involving the expenditure of over $35,000. In all this growth, the work of the com- mittee, under Mr. Brainerd's leadership, has been a most important factor.
From the most comprehensive sketch yet made of the history of the Young Men's Christian Association, we quote the following:
" No account of the international work would be com- plete without mention of its chairman for the last 15 years, Mr. Cephas Brainerd. He, in the beginning, and when it was unpopular, grasped the basal idea of the work by young men, and he has clung to it tenaciously throughout."
Every report of the committee to the conventions has been written by him.
Till 1872, the entire correspondence was conducted by him, and has since that time been under his careful · supervision. The various secretaries of the committee have prosecuted their work under his direction.
This remarkable unsalaried service for so many years
by one thoroughly qualified leader has been of incalcula- ble service to the work for Christ among young men in this and other lands.
Mr. Brainerd has lived to see his correct conception and understanding of the associations, unpopular at first, gain at last general approval and ascendency.
Mr. Brainerd was married, January 12th 1859, to Eve- line, daughter of Dr. Ira Hutchinson, of Cromwell, who had spent 25 years of his professional life in Haddam. Three children born to them are all living: Cephas Brainerd jr., Ira H. Brainerd, and Eva W. Brainerd.
THE FIELD FAMILY.
No history of Middlesex county, and especially no his- tory of Haddam would be complete without some account of Rev. David D. Field, D.D., who, though not born in that town or county, has inseparably connected his name with both by his contribution to their early history. Dr. Field was the son of Timothy Field, a captain in the Revolutionary war, from the town of Guilford, or that portion of it which subsequently became the town of Madison, and was born on the 20th of May 1781. After the usual preparatory studies he entered Yale College in the class of 1798, and graduated in due course in 1802, in a class which embraced Isaac C. Bates, United States Senator from Massachusetts, Jeremiah Evarts, Governors Tomlinson and Pond, of Connecticut, and others of equal eminence. He studied theology with Dr. Backus, at Somers, and while there made the acquaintance of Sub- mit Dickinson, a daughter of Capt. Noah Dickinson, a soldier under Putnam in the French war, and afterward in the Revolutionary war, whom he married, and who was the mother of his ten children.
Dr. Field was settled over the Congregational church in Haddam on the 11th of April 1804; here he remained in charge of this church until the 11th day of April 1818. After his dismission he made a missionary tour, on horse back, into what was then a wilderness, as far as Buffalo, and returning passed through the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which he reached on Saturday night.
At the request of the people he remained there and preached the next day. Subsequently receiving a call from that church on the 25th of August 1818, he settled as its pastor and remained there for 18 years. While in Haddam, Dr. Field, in addition to the faithful perform- ance of his duties in a very large parish, embracing the whole of the town lying west of the Connecticut River, became much interested in historical investigations, especially in gathering up local histories of towns and churches and in studying the memorials of the worthies of New England. He became an active member, and at one time vice-president of the Historical Society of Con- necticut, and the corresponding member of the Histori- cal Societies of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and made many valuable contributions to the stock of local historical knowledge. In 1819, he published a very im- portant history of Middlesex county, and about the same time a history of the town of Haddam, which are the foundations for the histories which have been subse- quently written of that county and that town.
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HADDAM-BIOGRAPHIES.
Upon the termination of Mr. Field's pastorate in Stockbridge, he was again called to the pastorate of the church in Haddam where he was installed over the people of his early care on the 11th of April 1836. In 1844, a division in the large church took place and a new church was organized at Higganum, and over this Dr. Field was settled, and continued pastor of that church until July 1850; making a service over a Con- gregational church in the one town for more than 28 years.
Doctor Field also prepared an elaborate historical dis- course for the town and city of Middletown which was delivered on the 13th day of November 1850. Doctor Field also prepared, as a labor of love, a genealogy of the Brainerd family, of something more than 300 pages, which was published after he had ceased statedly to oc. cupy any pulpit. He gives his reasons for this work in the preface, as follows: " The Rev. Israel Brainerd, from Haddam, a class-mate of my only brother, in Yale Col- lege, was for some years the pastor of the first church in Guilford. One of the prominent members of my own class was William Fowler Brainerd, who for many years was an able and eloquent lawyer in Connecticut. *
* Soon after I began to preach, I was settled as pastor of the church in Haddam, where Daniel Brainerd lived, the ancestor of all the Brainerds in the United States.
* % * In my walks I often passed the spot where his youngest son, the Hon. Hezekiah Brainerd, lived and reared a large and very remarkable family of children; among these were the missionaries David and John * * * * Brainerd. * *
* In passing the spot I could hardly refrain from pausing and meditating on the piety which existed there a hundred years before, and especially upon the extraordinary lives and characters of the two missionaries."
Doctor Field was famous the country round as a hard working and faithful pastor, and was called by the hard- headed people of his early time, whose chief enjoyment was the reading of the sermons of Jonathan Edwards, Nathaniel Emmons, and Doctor Bellamy, " a great ser- monizer." He often, like all the preachers of those days, delivered what were called " all day discourses "- that is, a consecutive and logical discussion of the topic, quite too long for a single church service.
Few of the people of to-day have very much concep- tion of the kind of service which the New England pas- tor performed seventy-five years ago. It was preaching in the morning, preaching in the afternooon, the meeting in the evening-which was called the " third service "- and then the evening prayer meeting, held night after night in one or the other of the outlying school districts of the town, so that those who remember the announce- ments for the week in the old Haddim church, can re - call the sturdy physique of Dr. Field in the pulpit, stuck like the nest of the barn swallow far up on the side of the church, appointing a meeting for every evening of the week in one or the other of these far-off school districts, to begin, as the phrase was, " by early candle light."
during Dr. Field's last pastorate in Haddam, led by him to erect an academy in the town, and for those times to endow it handsomely.
The last days of Dr. Field were spent in Stock- bridge, and there he died April 15th 1867, almost 87 years old.
Of Dr. Field's ten children, seven were born in Had- dam, one of whom died in infancy.
The eldest, David Dudley Field, was born February 13th 1805, at Haddam, in what is known as the old Par- melee House, now standing. At the age of nine he was taken from the village school into his father's study and there taught Latin, Greek, and mathematics. At four- teen he entered an academy at Stockbridge, under a famous teacher, Jared Curtis; in 1821, he entered Wil- liams College, where he distinguished himself as a scholar; graduated in 1825, and went to Albany to study law. When he left home his father took him into his study, gave him a Bible to be his guide through life-a book which he keeps to this day-and kneeling down com - mended his first born son to the care and protection of Almighty God. He remained a few months at Albany, in the office of Harmanus Bleeker, and then removed to * New York and entered the office of the Sedgwick Brothers, who were also from Stockbridge; lawyers of distinction, culture, and liberal practice. Upon the death of one of them Mr. Field became the partner of the survivor. He was admitted an attorney and solicitor in 1828, and counsellor in 1830, and he is at this writing, November 1884, still in full practice at the bars of the State and Federal Courts. Mr. Field has never held office, ex- cept for a few months in 1877, when he was elected to Con- gress to fill a vacancy. His practice as a lawyer has been various, extensive, and of the most important character. Litigations involving large sums of money, large personal interests, and great and disputed legal principles have oc- cupied his office, almost from the commencement of his practice. For years he has stood in the front rank of the lawyers of the United States, and has probably argued more causes involving questions of Constitu- tional law in the highest court of his own State, and of the United States, than any living lawyer. His services in the cause of law reform, beginning with pamphlets written in 1839, have been continuous and important, re- sulting in the general agitation of that subject in this country, and finally in the adoption of Codes, either framed by himself, or modelled upon those framed sub. stantially by him, in the State of New York, and in vari- ous other States of the Union. The Code of Civil Procedure was adopted in at least 24 States and Territories, and the Code of Criminal Procedure in some nineteen States and Territories; while in one, California, the five codes which Mr. Field was so largely instru- mental in preparing, were adopted. In the efforts to secure a codification of international law, Mr. Field has borne a foremost part. This topic was presented by him to the British Association for the promotion of Social Science, held at Manchester in 1866. In 1877, he pre- Two brothers, members of the Brainerd family, were, pared and published " Draft Outlines of an International
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