Lt. Phineas Brainerd
Phineas Brainerd was born at Haddam, Connecticut, on 17 October 1720. His parents were Elijah Brainerd and Mary Bushnell. Elijah was a son of Daniel Brainerd, one of the first settlers of Haddam, a town on the Connecticut River below Middletown. Phineas lost his mother in September 1735, when he was fourteen, and his father in April 1740.
On 9 November 1741 he married Jerusha Towner, a daughter of Benjamin Towner. They settled at Higganum, a village in the north of Haddam. Their children were Jerusha in 1742, a son Phineas who lived eleven days, Elizabeth, a second Phineas, Esther in 1748/9, Henry, Heman in 1754, Jehu in 1757 and Huldah about 1760.
The town gave him its offices. In 1757 he was constable and collector, the man who kept the peace and gathered the town's rates. In October 1765 the General Assembly made him lieutenant of the 11th company of the colony's 7th regiment. Every able-bodied man belonged to a militia company, and its officers were confirmed by the Assembly.
In the summer of 1774 Parliament closed the port of Boston to punish the town for the destruction of the tea. Towns across New England met to answer. Haddam met on 5 September 1774, and Phineas Brainerd was moderator, the man who chaired the meeting. The New London Gazette printed its resolutions on 16 September. The town voted "That the American Colonies have just reason to be alarmed at the present Stretch of Parliamentary Power." It voted "That we cordially sympathize with our Sister Colony the Massachusetts Bay, and in particular with the Town of Boston now struggling in the Front of Oppression." The meeting named him to the committee to receive donations for the poor of Boston.
In May 1776 Haddam sent him as its deputy to the General Assembly, the colony's lower house. Two months later the colonies declared their independence.
Jerusha died on 18 April 1797, in her seventy fourth year. He lived six more years. On 8 March 1803, at eighty two, "he went to the barn to fodder the cattle, where he was found dead." The Middlesex Gazette noticed his death on 21 March: "By the wife of his youth he had an offspring of 9 children, 52 grandchildren, 48 great-grand-children, 1 great-great-grandchild."
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Cite: Heirology, "Lt. Phineas Brainerd (1720-1803)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/lt-phineas-brainerd-1720-1803-8d680c.