Leverett Brainard

Leverett Brainard was born in West Chester, Connecticut on 13 February 1828, the eldest son of Huldah Foote (1791-1881)and Amaziah Brainard (1780-1841). His father died when he was thirteen. He attended the district school and later Bacon Academy in Colchester. He worked on the family farm and taught school during the winter until he became a book agent. Later he entered the insurance business, which took him to western Pennsylvania, and then in 1853 he was offered the secretaryship of the Orient Insurance Company of Hartford, which he held for five years. He was a director of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, the Aetna National Bank, the United States Bank, the Security Company, the Hartford and New York Transportation Company, the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, the Aetna Life Insurance Company, th Western Automatic Machine Screw Company, the Hartford Faience Company, the Aetna Indemnity Company, and the Board of Trade. He was president of the Hartford Paper Company and he was a partner in The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company. He served as secretary and treasurer of the company, and he became president after the death of Newton Case.

He served in the Governor's Foot Guard, and he was a representative to the Connecticut State Legislature in 1884. In 1894 he was chosen Mayor of the city of Hartford. He belonged to the Pearl Street Congregational Church. He was appointed by Governor M.G. Bulkeley, in 1890, a commissioner from Connecticut to the World's Fair in Chicago.

He belonged to Hartford Lodge, No. 88, the Hartford Club, the Republican Club of Hartford, the Country Club of Farmington, the Hartford Golf Club, and the Hartford Yacht Club. He was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, being a grandson of William Brainard, Captain Twenty-fifth Connecticut Militia.

Leverett Brainard married Mary Jerusha Bulkeley (1843- ) of Hartford on 29 November 1865 at the Pearl Street Congregational Church in Hartford. They had ten children. Leverett Brainard died on 2 July 1902 at the age of 74.