David Brainerd (April 20, 1718October 9, 1747) was an American Presbyterian minister and missionary to the Native Americans among the Delaware Indians of New Jersey. Missionaries such as William Carey and Jim Elliot, and Brainerd's cousin, the Second Great Awakening evangelist James Brainerd Taylor (1801–1829) cite Brainerd as inspiration. Biography Early life David Brainerd was born on April 20, 1718, in Haddam, Connecticut, the son of Hezekiah, a Connecticut legislator, and Dorothy. He had nine siblings, one of whom was Dorothy's from a previous marriage. He was orphaned at the age of nine, as his father died in 1727 at the age of 46 and his mother died five years later. After his mother's death, Brainerd moved to East Haddam to live with one of his older sisters, Jerusha. At the age of nineteen, he inherited a farm near Durham, but returned to East Haddam a year later to prepare to enter Yale. On July 12, 1739, he recorded having an experience of "unspeakable glory" that prompted in him a "hearty desire to exalt [God], to set him on the throne and to 'seek first his Kingdom'". This has been interpreted by evangelical scholars as a conversion experience. Preparing for ministry Two months later, he enrolled at Yale. In his second year at Yale, he was sent home because he was suffering from a serious illness that caused him to spit blood due to tuberculosis. When he returned in November 1740, tensions were beginning to emerge at Yale between the faculty staff and the students as the staff considered the spiritual enthusiasm of the students, which had been prompted by visiting preachers such as George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, Ebenezer Pemberton and James Davenport, to be excessive. Brainerd was expelled because of comments about the impious staff. A recent law forbade the appointment of ministers in Connecticut unless they had graduated from Harvard, Yale, or a European institution, so Brainerd had to reconsider his plans. In 1742, Brainerd was licensed to preach by a group of evangelicals known as New Lights. As a result, he gained the attention of Jonathan Dickinson, the leading Presbyterian in New Jersey, who unsuccessfully attempted to reinstate Brainerd at Yale. Instead, Dickinson suggested that Brainerd devote himself to missionary work among the Native Americans, supported by the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. He was approved for this missionary work on November 25, 1742. Entering