{"id":9895,"date":"2015-03-10T16:05:39","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T16:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=9895"},"modified":"2015-03-10T17:29:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T17:29:35","slug":"the-bible-it-just-might-save-your-life-literally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/the-bible-it-just-might-save-your-life-literally.html","title":{"rendered":"The Bible: It Just Might Save Your Life \u2013 Literally"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Word of God has been known to save the lives of many on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

And then there is John Brotherton, 1729-1809 (MD4H-4T5)<\/a>. The Bible saved his life \u2013 literally.<\/p>\n

In the mid-1700s Brotherton was in fierce hand-to-hand combat when a bayonet pierced through his belt, several layers of clothing, and 52 pages of his pocket Bible. That Bible slowed down the bayonet and saved his life.<\/p>\n

\"obituary<\/a>
Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Massachusetts), 22 November 1809, page 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"obituary<\/a>
Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Massachusetts), 22 November 1809, page 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to Brotherton\u2019s obituary in the Hampshire Gazette<\/em><\/a>, when he left \u201chis native cottage\u201d to join the British Army, he \u201ctook with him a small Bible, determining to make it the companion of his marches.\u201d Faith made Brotherton a better man. His family was deeply religious and John himself was described as a man of \u201cboldness and intrepidity\u201d with a demeanor that was \u201cgentle\u201d and \u201cwithout offense,\u201d setting him apart from his fellow soldiers.<\/p>\n

John Brotherton served with his regiment during the Seven Years\u2019 War (1754-1763)<\/a>. (In America this is called the French & Indian War<\/a>.) While we don\u2019t know the specific battle when that pocket Bible saved his life, John\u2019s newspaper obituary tells us that he fought in Germany against the French at the Battle of Minden<\/a> in 1759.<\/p>\n

\"Painting:<\/a>
Illustration: Battle of Minden, 1759 \u2013 by Richard Caton Woodville (1825-1855). Source: Wikipedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This battle illustration gives us a good idea of the fierce, hand-to-hand fighting that John Brotherton experienced during the Seven Years\u2019 War.<\/p>\n

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Brotherton served in the military faithfully, returned home, and lived to be 80 years old.<\/p>\n

Thanks to GenealogyBank<\/a>, John\u2019s gripping war survival story is passed on to us today.<\/p>\n

According to his obituary, one of Brotherton\u2019s brothers was given this special lifesaving Bible at the time of his death.<\/p>\n

Does the family still have this heirloom Bible? Do they know why there is a large gash in it? Do they know the details of John\u2019s military service and how this Bible saved his life?<\/p>\n

Obituaries showcase our ancestors lives. While some obituaries may only give us a line or two about our deceased relatives, many include important personal stories. Brotherton\u2019s miracle inspires us all to value life, and be thankful for the things that keep us alive. Family history helps connect us to the stories of our past.<\/p>\n

GenealogyBank lets us dig deeper into the times our ancestors grew up in, and find the details of their day-to-day lives. We all have a John Brotherton in our family tree. We only need to do the genealogy research to find their story.<\/p>\n

GenealogyBank\u2019s deep newspaper archive of over 1.7 billion records holds story after story about the people who built America, along with their births, marriages, and deaths. Find your ancestors\u2019 stories today to discover who they were, what they did and what they lived through. Find your John Brotherton.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/em><\/strong> FamilySearch International (FamilySearch.org<\/a>) and GenealogyBank are partnering to make over a billion records from historical obituaries searchable online. The tremendous undertaking will make a billion records from over 100 million U.S. newspaper obituaries readily searchable online. The newspapers are from all 50 states and cover the period 1730 to the present.\u00a0 Find out more at: https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/family-search\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Word of God has been known to save the lives of many on a daily basis. And then there is John Brotherton, 1729-1809 (MD4H-4T5). The Bible saved his life \u2013 literally. In the mid-1700s Brotherton was in fierce hand-to-hand combat when a bayonet pierced through his belt, several layers of clothing, and 52 pages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[9065,2489,9064,1658,2233,7710,12,2076,465,2424,9062,2020,27,4818,1084,5059,9063],"class_list":["post-9895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-battle-of-minden","tag-bibles","tag-brotherton","tag-family-history-2","tag-family-research","tag-french-and-indian-war","tag-genealogy","tag-germany","tag-historical-newspapers","tag-historical-obituaries","tag-john-brotherton","tag-newspaper-archives","tag-newspapers","tag-newspapers-for-genealogy","tag-obituaries","tag-obituary-archives","tag-seven-years-war"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}