Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather
Peter Pelham · Public domain · source
Name	Cotton Mather
Caption	Portrait by John Smibert
Birth date	February 12, 1663
Birth place	Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony
Death date	February 13, 1728
Death place	Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony
Occupation	Puritan minister, author, theologian, pamphleteer
Years active	1685–1728
Spouse	Elizabeth Hubbard Mather
Children	Increase Mather II (among others)

Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather was a prominent Puritan minister, prolific author, and polemicist in colonial New England, best known for his involvement in religious life in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony and for his writings on theology, history, and natural philosophy. A scion of the Mather family dynasty, he engaged with figures and institutions across the Atlantic world and left a complex legacy connected to the Salem witch trials, colonial Massachusetts Bay Colony politics, and early American science. His career connected him to ministers, governors, scholars, and patrons including Increase Mather, John Winthrop, William Penn, Samuel Sewall, and transatlantic correspondents.

Early life and education

Born in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony to Increase Mather and Maria Mather, he belonged to a prominent clerical family with deep ties to Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the ecclesiastical networks of New England. He matriculated at Harvard College at a young age and later received degrees that connected him with colonial and metropolitan elites including links to Oxford University and the scholarly circles of London. His formation was shaped by encounters with fellow students and ministers such as Daniel Gookin, Thomas Cobbett, Samuel Richardson, and by the theological controversies surrounding the Half-Way Covenant and Antinomian Controversy legacies. Early influences included works by John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Richard Baxter as well as the practical pastoral models of John Cotton and John Eliot.

Ministry and pastoral career

Mather served as assistant and later colleague to ministers in leading Boston congregations, engaging in disputes and alliances with figures like Charles Chauncy, Benjamin Colman, William Stoughton, and Simon Bradstreet. He preached before civic bodies including the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony and advised governors such as Joseph Dudley and William Phips. His pastoral duties involved correspondence with transatlantic clergy and lay patrons including Cotton Tufts and John Leverett. He participated in ecclesiastical trials and ordinations alongside ministers like John Wise and Thomas Thacher, and his pulpit rhetoric interacted with pamphleteers such as Increase Mather and John Hale.

Writings and intellectual contributions

Mather authored hundreds of sermons, pamphlets, treatises, and the multi-volume Magnalia Christi Americana, joining the tradition of clerical historians like Nathaniel Ward and Samuel Danforth. His output engaged with Biblical exegesis from commentators such as Matthew Henry and with recent works by Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, and John Locke. He wrote on topics connecting to colonial administration and public health, dialoguing with figures like Hans Sloane, Thomas Sydenham, and James Jurin. His historiography placed New England in a providential narrative alongside European events such as the Glorious Revolution and the reigns of William III of England and Queen Anne. Mather also corresponded with publishers and printers including Bartholomew Green and John Allen.

Role in the Salem witch trials

Mather's relationship to the Salem witch trials involved publications, sermons, and consultations with magistrates like William Stoughton and officials such as Thomas Brattle. He engaged in controversy with skeptics and critics including Samuel Sewall, John Hale, and lay opponents who later recanted or defended proceedings. He drew on demonological sources such as works by Joseph Glanvill and legal traditions informed by Matthew Hale while also debating epistemological questions raised by contemporaries like Gottfried Leibniz and John Locke. His writings provoked responses from London and New England readerships including clerics like Charles Morton and civic leaders such as Increase Mather.

Scientific interests and membership in learned societies

Mather promoted smallpox inoculation during epidemics and corresponded with transatlantic natural philosophers including Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Hartlib, Robert Boyle, and Pierre des Maizeaux. He maintained ties with the Royal Society network through correspondents like Hans Sloane and attempted to bridge clerical learning with the new experimental philosophy. Mather's interests included natural history, botany, and indigenous knowledge, aligning him with collectors and naturalists such as John Bartram, Mark Catesby, and James Petiver. He exchanged specimens and letters with merchants and physicians including Edward Hutchinson and William Douglass.

Personal life and family

Mather married Elizabeth Hubbard, connecting him to families prominent in Massachusetts Bay Colony society and to kin networks including the Hubbards. His immediate household included children who entered clerical and civic life such as Increase Mather II and relations who married into families like the Bradfords, Lechmeres, and Gerrishes. He interacted socially and politically with colonial elites including John Winthrop the Younger, Thomas Dudley, and Joseph Dudley, and maintained friendships and rivalries with ministers like Samuel Willard and John Leverett.

Legacy and historical assessments

Mather's legacy has been reassessed by historians ranging from Charles W. Upham and Samuel Eliot Morison to modern scholars such as Michael P. Winship, John Demos, and Richard Godbeer. Debates engage his role in the Salem witch trials, his advocacy of inoculation amid opposition from physicians like William Douglass, and his place in the intellectual history connecting Puritanism to the Atlantic Republic of Letters. His work influenced later Americans including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and clergy in the Great Awakening like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Assessments range from portrayals as a zealous cleric implicated in persecution to recognition as an early adopter of empirical medicine and a prolific chronicler of colonial New England life.

Category:1663 births Category:1728 deaths Category:Colonial American clergy