Mather

MATHER: The name of a family of much prominence in the early history of New England.

1. Richard Mather, the ancestor of the family in America, was born at Lowton (14 m. w. of Manchester), pariah of Winwick, Lancashire, 1596; d. at Dorchester, Mass., Apr. 22, 1669. He was sent to the Winwick grammar-school, and at fifteen was chosen teacher of a school at ToxtethPark. Here he became acquainted with a branch of the Aapinwall family, by whom he was led to devote himself to the ministry, and went to Brasenose, Oxford, to prepare for the same. But the people at Toxteth were so unwilling to wait for him, that he left the university before taking his degrees, and late in 1618, when only twenty-two, preached his first sermon at Toxteth Park. The Bishop of Chester ordained him; and in Sept., 1624, he married Katherine, daughter of Edmond Holt of Bury. Becoming an earnest Puritan and being for a time suspended, he left-traveling in disguise to Bristol-for New England, May 23, 1635, landing at Boston, after being very nearly shipwrecked, Aug. 17 following. The First Church at Dorchester having emigrated with its pastor, Warham, to Connecticut, Mr. Mather gathered a new (the present First) church there Aug. 23, 1636; he was chosen its teacher and so remained until his death. For his second wife he married the widow of John Cotton (q.v.). By his first wife he left six sons, of whom four-Samuel, Nathaniel, Eleazer, and Increase-followed their father's profession.

Richard Mather was one of the ablest and most influential among the early ministers of New England, a powerful preacher, and a specially wise counselor; he was seized with his mortal illness while moderating that ecclesiastical council in Boston out of whose deliberations the Old South Church was born. He was skilled in the New England plan of church government, wrote three or four of the best early tracts in its exposition and defense, and was the chief composer of the "Cambridge Platform."

2. Samuel Mather, eldest son of Richard Mather, was born at Much Woolton (4 m. s.e. of Liverpool), Lancashire, May 13, 1626; d. in Dublin Oct. 29, 1671. He came to New England with his father in 1635, was graduated at Harvard in 1643, and became fellow; he is said to have been the first fellow who was a Harvard graduate. He returned to England in 1650 and was made a chaplain of Magdalen College, Oxford. He resigned in 1653 to attend the parliamentary commissioners to Scotland. He became an M.A. of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1654, and was one of its senior fellows. He was ordained at Dublin Dec. 5, 1656. At the Restoration he was suspended (Oct., 1660) and then became perpetual curate of Burtonwood, Warrington, Lancashire, whence he was ejected by the Act of Uniformity of 1662. Returning to Dublin he preached there for several years, at first in his own house. He was imprisoned Sept. 20, 1664, for preaching at a private conventicle but was soon released. He declined a call to return to Boston, U. S. A.

S. Nathaniel Mather, third son of Richard Mather, was born at Much `Voolton, Lancashire, Mar. 20, 1630; d. in London July 26, 1697. He came to New England with his father in 1635 and was graduated M.A. at Harvard in 1647. He then returned to England and preached at Harberton and at Barnstaple, Devonshire, until ejected by the Act of 1662, when he went to Rotterdam. Here he remained as minister of the English Church until the death of his brother Samuel, when he succeeded him in Dublin. In 1688 he took charge of the Lime Street Church, London, and in 1694 became one of the Merchants' Lecturers at Pinner's Hall. He is interred in Bunhill Fields, London.

4. Eleazer Mather, fifth son of Richard Mather, was born at Dorchester, Mass., May 13, 1637; d. at Northampton, Mass., July 24, 1669. He was graduated at Harvard in 1656. In 1658 he went to

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Northampton, gathered the first church there, was ordained in June, 1661, and labored successfully as pastor till his early. death.

6. Increase Mather, sixth and youngest son of Richard Mather, was born at Dorchester, Mass., June 21, 1639; d. in Boston Aug. 23, 1723. He was graduated at Harvard in 1656 in the same class with his brother Eleazer, though on account of physical weakness for a time he was a pupil of John Norton. On his nineteenth birthday he preached at Dorchester, and, twelve days later, sailed for England. He took his M.A. at Trinity College, Dublin, and, after preaching in various places, returned to New England in 1661, intending to go back to England when times should be more favorable. He was ordained in New England, however, May 27, 1664, over the Second Church of Boston and remained there till his death. For seventeen years (1685-1701) of this pastorate he was also president of Harvard College; and in 1688 he went to England as special agent of the Massachusetts Colony, where-" his expenses in the mean time greatly exceeding his compensation, and he pledging all his property for money which he borrowed to support himself while he was working for his country "-he remained in this public ec:-vioe about four years.

It is related of Increase Mather that it was his habit to study sixteen hours out of the twentyfour. It is matter of record that he was not merely acceptable, but highly honored, for nearly sixty years, in one of the two most important pulpits on this aide of the sea; and he left behind him publications of various sorts to the number of 160. It is in no way strange, therefore, that he should have been almost unanimously held to be the foremost minister of his day in this new country, and that he should have exercised an influence as vast as, in the main, it was salutary. In 1662 he married Maria, daughter of John Cotton, by whom he had three sons and seven daughters. His sons--Cotton, Nathaniel, and Samuel-were graduated at Harvard in 1678, 1685, and 1690 respectively.

6. Cotton Mather, eldest son of Increase Mather, was born in Boston Feb. 12, 1663; d. there Feb. 13, 1728. He became the most renowned of the lineage, although, conceding his omnivorous scholarship and exceptional labors, it may be doubted whether he were even the peer of his father or grandfather in intellectual ability. He took his B.A. at Harvard (1678) when less than fifteen years and six months old; taught for a time; overcame an impediment of speech which had threatened to interfere with his success in the family profession; acted as his father's assistant at the Second Church, Boston; and was ordained, as joint pastor with him, May 13, 1685-a place which he surrendered only at his death. During nearly three and forty years he was indefatigable as a preacher, systematic and thorough as a pastor, eminent as a philanthropist-at great personal risk successfully introducing and defending the inoculative prevention of smallpax-and amazing as an author; being known to have printed 382 separate works, of which several were elaborate volumes, and one a stately folio of 800 pages; while, to his sore and amazed grief, the great work of his life (in his own esteem), his Biblia Americana, failed of publication. It remains in manuscript to this day.

It was Cotton Mather's misfortune that the weak and whimsical aide of his multiform greatness most impressed itself on many of his generation, and that, for sharing with other good and eminent men of his day in the witchcraft delusion, he has most unfairly been singled out for a specialty of censure and contumely which in no degree fairly belongs to him. He was no more guilty for not being, as to that, in advance of his age, than were Richard Baxter and Sir Matthew Hale in England, or Judge Sewall, or Gov. Stoughton, or Sir William Phips, or scores of others in New England. He married three times.

7. Samuel Mather, fourth son of Cotton Mather (by his second wife) and the only one of his sons who lived to manhood, was born in Boston Oct. 30, 1706; d. there June 27, 1785. He was graduated at Harvard in 1723, before he was seventeen; and four years after his father's death, June 21, 1732, was ordained colleague with Rev. Joshua Gee over that same Boston church which his father and grandfather had served for sixty-four years before him. Of considerable learning and fair abilities, he did not, however, fill the ancient place; and in less than ten years was dismissed, and, with a not very large following, labored with a new church (which did not survive him) until his death. He, too, was an author, of less than a score of books, however, only one of which, An Apology for the Liberties of the Churches of New England (Boston, 1738), deserves, or has, remembrance. None of his three sons studied for the ministry.

this family, f which eleven members were trained for the sacred office in four generations, of whom the seven who wrought in New England expended about 250 years of ministerial labor upon it, besides publishing more than 500 different works, and some of them exerting a popular influence never surpassed, and seldom equalled. For its distinguished services in each of its four generations, in reducing to rigid system, illustrating, defending, and chronicling the way of the churches of New England, if it had done nothing else, this Mather group would deserve, as it will receive, perpetual remembrance.

(Henry M. Dexter†.) Morton Dexter.

Bibliography: An excellent edition of Cotton Mather's Mapnalia Christi Americana (a source for the earlier members of the family), with memoir and transl. of Hebr., Grk. and Lat. quotations, appeared 2 vols., Hartford, 1855. Other early sources are indicated in the series of notices in DNB, xxxviii. 27-31. Consult: John Mather, Genealogy of the Maths- Family, Hartford, 1848; C. Robbine, Hist. of old North Church in Boston, Boston, 1852; W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, i 75 -80, 151-160 189-195, 371-375, New York, 1859; B. Wendell, Cotton Mather, in Makers of America Series ib. 1891; A. P. Marvin Life and Times of Cotton Mather, Boston, 1892; W. Walker, Influence of the Mathers in New England Religious Development, New York, 1892; idem, Hist. of the Congregational Churches in the U. S., passim, ib. 1894 (cf. Index); idem, New England Leaders, ib. 1901; A. E. Dunning, Congregationalists in America ib. 1894; L. W. Bacon, The Congregationalists, ib. 1904; J. P. Quinsy, Cotton Mather and the Supernormal in New England Hist., in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2d ser, vol. xx., 1907.

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