Mathers (New England family)

Mathers (New England family)
Name	Mathers
Caption	Portraits of notable members
Region	New England
Origin	Scotland / England
Founded	17th century
Founder	Richard Mather
Notable	Increase Mather; Cotton Mather; Samuel Mather

Mathers (New England family) The Mathers were a prominent New England family of clergymen, scholars, and landowners whose members shaped the religious, political, and intellectual life of colonial Massachusetts Bay Colony, Boston, and neighboring towns from the 17th through the 18th centuries. Originating with immigrant minister Richard Mather, the family produced influential figures such as Increase Mather and Cotton Mather, who engaged with contemporaries including John Winthrop, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and institutions like Harvard College and the Salem witch trials. Their writings, sermons, and correspondence intersected with events such as the Glorious Revolution and the King Philip's War and with persons including Samuel Sewall, William Phips, Jonathan Edwards, and Benjamin Franklin.

Origins and Early Settlers

Richard Mather emigrated from Manchester/England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s during the Great Migration (Puritan) alongside ministers like John Winthrop and John Cotton. Settling in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Richard Mather established a clerical lineage that included sons and grandsons who attended Harvard College and served congregations across New England. The family maintained ties to English Presbyterians and Congregationalists and corresponded with figures such as Samuel Rutherford and Thomas Goodwin. Early settlers in the wider family network married into families like the Sewall family, the Gorham family, and the Brattle family, creating interlocking social connections with leaders of Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Prominent Family Members

The most famous members were Richard’s descendants: Increase Mather, a leading minister and president of Harvard who advised governors like Joseph Dudley and opposed figures such as Sir Edmund Andros during the Boston Revolt (1689), and his son Cotton Mather, a prolific author and minister whose works engaged with Isaac Newton-influenced natural philosophy, John Locke-era ideas, and debates over witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. Other notable figures include Samuel Mather, who ministered in New Haven and corresponded with Jonathan Edwards, and Joseph Mather, who served in civic roles alongside members of the Governor’s Council (Massachusetts Bay). Female members connected the family to the Stoughton family and to women active in charitable networks tied to Brigham Young-era New England philanthropy. The Mathers’ alumni and correspondents included Increase Sumner, Thomas Brattle, Daniel Gookin, and Edward Taylor.

Role in Colonial Massachusetts Society

As ministers and civic leaders, Mathers occupied pulpit and political spaces central to Boston and the Massachusetts colonial administration. Their sermons and pamphlets addressed crises such as King Philip's War and the Glorious Revolution in America, and they counseled governors like William Phips and Simon Bradstreet. Through positions at Harvard College and the Massachusetts General Court, Mathers influenced clerical appointments, legal responses to perceived heresy or sedition, and municipal governance in towns including Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dorchester, Massachusetts, and Salem, Massachusetts. They engaged in public controversies with figures such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson’s opponents and collaborated with magistrates like John Hathorne and Nathaniel Saltonstall during high-profile trials.

Political, Religious, and Intellectual Influence

The Mathers left a substantial corpus of sermons, treatises, and letters that shaped Congregationalist theology and colonial polity. Increase Mather’s tracts addressed issues ranging from clerical ordination to resistance against Sir Edmund Andros while Cotton Mather’s works, including histories and natural histories, responded to currents from European Enlightenment thinkers and to popular science disseminated by networks tied to Royal Society correspondents. The family’s theological positions intersected with debates involving Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and revivalist movements before and during the Great Awakening. Politically, the Mathers advised colonial assemblies and influenced legal practice through relationships with justices of the Superior Court of Judicature and governors such as William Stoughton. Their intellectual reach connected Boston’s learned circles—Benjamin Franklin’s contemporaries, Thomas Brattle’s scientific society, and Mather Byles’s circle—to transatlantic print networks.

Economic Activities and Landholdings

While primarily clerical, members of the Mathers were also landowners and investors who acquired property in Dorchester, Cambridge, Weymouth, and holdings tied to colonial enterprises. They participated in the patronage economies that supported parish churches and Harvard endowments, and family wealth enabled patronage of printing presses like those run by Printing Press (Colonial America) figures and printers such as John Foster and Hezekiah Usher. Through marriages, they gained stakes in mercantile and shipping ventures linking Boston to ports like London and Kingston, Jamaica, and they engaged with institutions such as the Boston Latin School and the Harvard Corporation in allocating land and funds.

Legacy and Descendants

The Mathers’ legacy persists in New England’s institutional memory: buildings, endowed chairs at Harvard University, manuscript collections in libraries like the Massachusetts Historical Society, and place names across Massachusetts. Their descendants and kinfolk continued in clergy and civic roles through the 18th and 19th centuries, interacting with figures such as Samuel Adams, John Adams, Elbridge Gerry, and later historians like Samuel Eliot Morison. Scholarly reassessment has linked Cotton Mather to early American science and Increase Mather to colonial constitutionalism, while debates about their roles in the Salem witch trials and in shaping colonial public life remain active among historians referencing archives from the American Antiquarian Society and the John Carter Brown Library.

Category:Colonial American families Category:History of Massachusetts Category:New England families