John Brodhead (1770 - 1838)
Born at Lower Smithfield (PA); died at Newfields (NH).
Clergyman; state and national legislator.
Portrait by William Merritt Chase, 1901.
Presented to the State by executors of Mrs. Brodhead's estate 1902.

John Brodhead attended Stroudsburg (PA) Academy, where he studied theology. He was ordained to the Methodist ministry in 1794, and began his travels as a minister in Maryland and New Jersey (1794/6). In 1796 Brodhead was appointed superintendent of Methodist societies in the Connecticut River Valley; Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography (1888) credits Brodhead with the founding of Methodism in the Valley and in Canada. He settled in Canaan (NH) in 1801, and at Newfields Village, Newmarket (NH) in 1808.

Brodhead served ten years in the New Hampshire Senate (1817/27), and was a Jackson Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives (1829/33).

References: Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1888); Joseph Dow, History of the Town of Hampton (1893).