In 1727 he moved from Marlborough to Grafton. He was one of Grafton's most distinguished citizens. He held various town offices including Justice of the Peace, and was deputy to the general court. He was appointed a magistrate by the royal governor.

Daniel was a soldier during the French-Indian Wars. He died during the Crown Point Expedition.

The following is excerpted from "The Hundredth Town. Glimpses of Life in Westborough 1717-1817" by Harriette Merrifield Forbes

This was just before the war of 1758. Daniel Brigham, a young man of twenty-three, was drafted into the army, and the most strenuous efforts of the family failed to procure a substitute. Just before leaving home, as he was going up the road for the cattle, late one afternoon, he was startled by seeing before him a man wrapped in an Indian blanket. He recognized the figure and face of the man as his own. It disappeared. His brother, standing in the doorway of the old house, also saw the form. He went to the war with the conviction that he should never return.

A few weeks after, he fell ill of a fever, at Crown Point. When near the point of death, an Englishman found him attended by a friendly Indian, and wrapped in an Indian blanket. Afterwards the Englishman brought back to Grafton this account of the realization of their fears.

The exact spot where this apparition was seen has for many generations been pointed out to the children of the family. It is not far beyond the Brigham homestead, now owned by Mr. E. A. Brigham, on the " old road," just after passing the "dry bridge."