Lawrence Brainerd

Lawrence Brainerd ( born March 16, 1794 in East Hartford, Connecticut; † May 9, 1870 in St. Albans, Vermont) was an American politician who represented the state of Vermont in the U.S. Senate.

1803, when he was not yet ten years old, Lawrence Brainerd moved from Connecticut to Troy, New York, to live with an uncle. Together with this he was then in 1808 in St. Albans, Vermont, where he finished his schooling and then first even worked as a teacher. As a result, he was employed as a clerk in a trading company, before embarking on a career as a businessman in the commercial, banking, shipping and railway industries.

His first political office took over Brainerd in 1834 as a deputy in the House of Representatives of Vermont; at that time he belonged to the Whigs. In 1840 he joined the short-lived Liberty Party, as their candidate, he also unsuccessfully for the office of Governor of Vermont applied later, after they had gone up in the Free Soil Party.

As a member of the anti- slavery party Lawrence Brainerd was in 1854 elected to the U.S. Senate; there he followed Samuel S. Phelps, where his mandate had been revoked. Brainerd remained on 14 October 1854 to 3 March 1855 the Senate. He was co-founder of the Republican Party and was sent as a delegate to the first Congress in 1856. He was also president of the American Missionary Society. For re-election, he joined as little like the gubernatorial election in Vermont, although he was nominated by his party once more. He focused back on his business activities, which he pursued until his death in 1870.

His cousin Joseph, who also lived in St. Albans, founded the newspaper " Franklin Journal", which called his new owner after the sale " St. Albans Messenger " and it still exists.

His daughter Ann published as a fantasy writer of several books. She was married to J. Gregory Smith, who served from 1863 to 1865 as governor of Vermont and later, in his capacity as president of the railway company Northern Pacific Railroad, named after his father founded in the city Brainerd Minnesota.