DAVID JOSIAH BREWER
BREWER, DAVID JOSIAH, son of an American missionary in Asia Minor, student at Middletown, Connecticut, graduate of Yale, class of 1856, and of Albany law school, 1858; lawyer in Leavenworth, Kansas, United States commissioner, judge of the Probate and Criminal courts, of the District court, county attorney, justice of the Supreme court of the state, judge of the United States Circuit court for the eighth district, 1859-89, and justice of the United States Supreme court from December 18, 1889; president of the Board of Commissioners to investigate the boundary line dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana, 1896; arbitrator on part of Venezuela in settlement of the dispute, 1899; was born in Smyrna, Turkey, Asia Minor, June 20, 1837. His father, the Reverend Josiah Brewer (1796-1872) was graduated from Yale college in 1821, was a missionary for the American Board of commissioners for Foreign Missions in Smyrna, Turkey, 1826-28; pioneer missionary sent by the New Haven Ladies’ Greek Association to establish schools for girls and women and to set up a printing press in Smyrna, Asia Minor, where he issued the first newspaper printed in the Greek language devoted to the propagation of the Christian religion in Asia Minor, 1830-38. He returned home in 1838 and was chaplain of the State Penitentiary, Wethersfield, Connecticut, 1839-41; lecturer, preacher and editor in the anti-slavery cause, 1841-44, Hartford, Connecticut; school teacher in New Haven, Connecticut, 1844-50, and in Middletown, Connecticut, 1850-57, and pastor of a Congregational church at Housatonic, Massachusetts, 1857-66. His mother, Emiha A. (Field) Brewer, was a daughter of the Reverend David Dudley and Submit (Dickinson) Field, and granddaughter of Captain Timothy Field and of Captain Noah Dickinson, both officers in the American Revolution. She with her younger brother, Stephen Johnson Field, then thirteen years of age, accompanied her husband to Smyrna, Turkey, as a missionary in 1830, and there her son David Josiah Brewer was born and from there he was brought to the United States in the autumn of 1838.
