Person:Ezra Brainerd (1)

The Life of Deacon Ezra Brainerd

"Ezra⁴ Brainerd (Josiah³, William², Daniel¹) of Haddam Neck, Middlesex Co., Conn.; …"

'He lived in the house built by his father in Middle Haddam, Conn., a little east of Quarry Hill. The quarry was opened by him about 1762. The stones were carted to the wharves on the Connecticut River and then transported by sailing craft to Long Island, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, and Virginia, and some were carried to New Orleans, La., to be used as paving and curbing.

'The sterling good sense of Ezra Brainerd early attracted the notice of Haddam people, connected with his fair moral and religious character, and he gained and long received the respect and confidence of the community where he lived and throughout the state. He was elected deacon in the Middle Haddam Congregational Church Nov. 27, 1771, and held the office till death removed him. He was justice of the peace for Middlesex Co. from 1785 to 1798, inclusive, and for Haddam from 1799 to 1817, inclusive. As justice of the peace, he was noted for the many marriage ceremonies he performed, and for the fact that he usually gave the fee taken from the bridegroom to the bride. He represented the town of Haddam in the General Assembly of Connecticut for thirty-three sessions, there being two yearly sessions until the year 1824, when yearly spring sessions were adopted. He acquired to an unusual degree the respect and confidence of that body. He did not speak often nor long, but he listened with profound attention to what was said by others and after making up his mind he sometimes briefly expressed his convictions, which strongly commended themselves to his associates.' He was one of the two delegates from Haddam to the Connecticut Constitutional Convention in 1818.

He held the offices of Lieut., Capt., Lieut-Col.-Com., and 2d Major in the 9th Regt., 1st Brigade, in succession from 1797 to 1815, inclusive, and had command of the Company stationed at Harlem Heights.

'He was an example of temperance, as well as of piety, and that long before the temperance reformation began. In the latter part of his life he was accustomed daily, when the weather was favorable, to go out and sit upon a rock above his quarry, almost directly over it, for the purpose of meditation; and a better place could hardly have been selected, whether he wished to contemplate the goodness of God towards him in his descent from a pious ancestry in sustaining him under arduous labors and numerous responsibilities, or the display of his attributes in his wonderful works. Within the reach of his eye were the residences and burial places of his first American ancestors, and of many of his kindred. Immediately about him were the scenes of his labors, engagements and trials, while before him an extended amphitheatre of hills and mountains, vales and meadows, with the beautiful Connecticut River meandering through them, rendered the more interesting by a busy navigation the most of the year. There, probably, very often he presented his silent adorations, his thanksgivings, and his supplications to the God of nature and of grace. At length, having thus lived, on the 7th of April, 1837, ae. 93, he was gathered to his fathers, even as a shock of corn is gathered in its season, being fully ripe.

'His funeral was attended the following Sabbath, when a sermon was preached by Rev. D. D. Field to the large assembly collected to show respect to his character and to follow him to the grave, from Rev. XIV: 13, 'And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord, from henceforth, yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them' ' —From Rev. D. D. Field's sketch of him in Brainerd Genealogy.

From The Connecticut Courant of July 15,1837, is found the following: 'Among the mourners at his funeral were his eldest son ae. 75, a grandson ae. 50, and a great grandson ae. 30.' '^[1]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} 8. Josiah³ Brainerd; 24. Ezra⁴ Brainerd, in Brainard, Lucy Abigail. The Genealogy of the Brainerd-Brainard Family in America: 1649-1908. (Hartford, Conn.: Hartford Press. : The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company, 1908)
   2:William:44, 51-53.

   "24. … Ezra (Brainerd), b. Aug. 17, 1744, in Haddam Neck, Conn. …

2. ↑ Ricker, Jacquelyn Ladd. The Ricker Compilation of Vital Records of Early Connecticut: Based on the Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records and Other Statistical Sources. (Baltimore, Maryland: Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company)
   1768.

   "Ezra, Dea., d. 1837 ae 93 in Middle Haddam - Dairy of Elisha Niles of Colchester & East Hampton"

3. ↑ Deacon Ezra Brainerd, in Find A Grave.