Brainerd used his home and other properties as hiding places for runaway slaves attempting to escape to Canada on the Underground Railroad. In 1839, a large, aggressive gray wolf attacked flocks and herds throughout Franklin County and became a cause for concern among farmers and townspeople. Brainerd, whose size, strength, and skills as an outdoorsman were the subject of local renown, successfully hunted the wolf. A monument commemorating his deed was later placed on Aldis Hill in St. Albans, near the spot where Brainerd caught up to and killed the wolf. In 1856, he was elected president of the Vermont Agricultural Society. Brainerd was an active member of the Congregational church and a long time advocate for the temperance movement. In addition, he was a longtime supporter of the American Missionary Association and served a term as its president. Political career Brainerd became involved in local politics and government with an appointment as deputy sheriff of Franklin County, Vermont. In 1834 he was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives as a Jacksonian, and he served from 1834 to 1835. Brainerd became increasingly opposed to slavery, and left the Jacksonians for the Whigs. Brainerd's anti-slavery views caused him to leave the Whigs in 1840 out of dissatisfaction with the party's attempts to find a compromise position on the slavery issue. He joined the new Liberty Party, then the Free Soil Party, both of which opposed slavery. Brainerd was the unsuccessful Free Soil candidate for governor of Vermont in 1846, 1847, 1852, 1853, and 1854. United States Senator In September 1854, Brainerd narrowly lost the election for a seat in the Vermont Senate in which he ran as the nominee of the Free Soil Party. In October, he was chosen by the Vermont General Assembly to fill a United States Senate vacancy, which had occurred when Senator William Upham died in January 1853. The Vermont General Assembly failed to choose a successor after Upham's death, so in December 1853 the governor appointed former Senator Samuel S. Phelps to fill the vacancy. Phelps served until the U.S. Senate resolved in March 1854 that he was not entitled to his seat, reasoning that while the governor could make an appointment while the state legislature was not in session, it fell to the legislature to make a selection if it was in session. When the new legislative session began in October 1854, anti-slavery members