He was ordained at Springfield, Mass, May 10, 1826, as a missionary, and in the following September embarked for the East, under the direction of the Boston Female Society for the promotion of Christianity among the Jews.
In 1830 he went back to Smyrna, where he remained for eight years as a missionary of the Ladies Greek Association of New Haven, Conn. After his final return to this country, in 1838, he was for three years chaplain of the Connecticut State Prison, at Wethersfield, and for a short time afterwards agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and editor of an anti-slavery paper in Hartford, Conn.
He then took up his residence in Stockbridge, Mass., and after serving for nine years as stated supply of the Congregational Church in the neighboring town of Housatonic, lived in retirement until his decease (preceded by a few months of severe suffering), November 19, 1872.
Emilia Brewer died December 16, 1861, and he was married in May 1863, to Lucy Treadwell Jerome, of New Hartford, Conn., daughter of the late Rev.
He was the namesake of Brewer Normal Institute (1872–1970), a segregated school for African American students in Greenwood, South Carolina.