David Brainerd was an American Presbyterian minister and missionary to the Native Americans among the Delaware Indians of New Jersey. His expulsion from anti-revival Yale was one of the main reasons Presbyterian minister like William Tennent and Samuel Davies and Congregational ministers like Jonathan Edwards worked so hard for the establishment of the pro-revival College of New Jersey.

In 1739, Brainerd was saved with "unspeakable glory", and pledged to serve God without reservation. Seeking ministerial training and credentials, he enrolled at Yale University. Unfortunately, Yale, like Harvard and every other school except William Tennent’s Log College, was not sympathetic to the First Great Awakening.

In 1740, tensions were beginning to emerge at Yale between the faculty staff and the students, because the staff considered the spiritual enthusiasm of the students, which had been prompted by visiting preachers such as George Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent, to be excessive. Brainerd was expelled because he was overheard saying he wondered if some of the staff at Yale were even saved.

At this time, anti-revival Presbyterian forces were preventing the appointment of ministers unless they graduated from Harvard, Yale, or a European institution, so Brainerd went to a group of pro-revival Congregational New Light Calvinist ministers called the Fairfield East Ministerial Association to be ordained. One of their group, unsuccessfully attempted to reinstate Brainerd at Yale, and then suggested Brainerd devote himself to missionary work among the Native Americans. He was commissioned for that missionary work in 1742.

He worked with the Indians, enduring continual pain and sickness until 1746. He wrote in his journal, later made famous by Jonathan Edwards, “All my desire was the conversion of the heathen, and all my hope was in God: God does not suffer me to please or comfort myself with hopes of seeing friends, returning to my dear acquaintance, and enjoying worldly comforts”.

He tried to recuperate his health at Jonathan Edwards' house. Apart from a trip to Boston, he remained at Edwards's house until his death from consumption. During this time, he was nursed by Jerusha Edwards, Jonathan's seventeen-year-old daughter. He died from tuberculosis in 1747, at the age of 29. Jerusha died in 1748 as a result of contracting tuberculosis from nursing Brainerd.