Editing David Brainerd (section)

===Early life===
[[File:David Brainerd on horseback.jpg|thumb|David Brainerd on horseback. He travelled over 3000 miles on horseback as a missionary.<ref>'Jonathan Edwards: A gallery of friends, foes & followers', ''Christian History & Biography'', 8 (1985).</ref>]]
[[File:David Brainerd preaching.jpg|thumb|Brainerd [[Open-air preaching|preaching in the open-air]] to Native Americans.]]

David Brainerd was born on April 20, 1718, in Haddam, Connecticut, the son of Hezekiah Brainerd, a Connecticut legislator, and Dorothy Hobart. He had nine siblings, one of whom was Dorothy's from a previous marriage. He was orphaned at the age of nine years, as his father died in 1727 at the age of 46 and his mother died five years later.<ref>Piper, pp. 123–124.</ref>

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, Connecticut|Durham]], but returned to East Haddam a year later to prepare to enter [[Yale University|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'".<ref>Piper, pp. 124–127.</ref> This has been interpreted by [[evangelical]] scholars as a [[religious conversion|conversion]] experience.<ref>E.g. Piper, pp. 126, 131.</ref>