Mather, INCREASE, a famous American colonial divine, was the sixth son of Richard Mather, an English Nonconformist minister, who emigrated to Massachusetts in 1635. He was born at Dorchester,
Massachusetts, June 21, 1639, graduated at Harvard College in 1656, and again at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1658. His first charge, at Great Torrington in Devonshire, was given him on the advice of John Howe. He next preached in Guernsey, but in 1661, finding it impossible to conform, returned to America, and in 1664 was ordained as pastor of the North Church, Boston, where he remained till his death, August 23, 1723. In 1681 he was also chosen president of Harvard College. An industrious student, he published no less than 136 separate works, most of which are now very scarce. Of these the most interesting, Remarkable Providences (1684), was reprinted in London in 1856. The History of the War with the Indians (1676) was reprinted at Boston in 1862. Mather's influence was great in the colony, and in 1689 he was sent to England to lay its grievances before the king. He was successful in obtaining a new charter from William III., and on his return was thanked by the speaker of the general assembly. The same year he became the first D.D. of Harvard. To his credit he was far less an alarmist about witchcraft than his son, and he had the good fortune to be absent in England during the time of fiercest excitement in the Salem mania. His Causes of Conscience concerning Witchcraft (1693) did much to cool the heated imaginations of the New England colonists, and saved lives by refuting the doctrine of 'spectral evidence.'
His son, COTTON MATHER, was born in Boston, February 12, 1663, and graduated in 1678 at Harvard, where his precocious learning and piety excited great expectations. He entered upon a course of fasting and vigils, cured a habit of stammering by speaking with 'dilated deliberation,' studied theology, and became the colleague of his father in the ministry of the North Church at Boston. His industry was phenomenal and his learning remarkable, while his vanity and fluency enabled him to pour from the press as many as 382 books. He took a fatal interest in witchcraft, and his Memorable Providences relating to Witchcraft and Possessions (1685) did much to fan the cruel fury of the New Englanders. The first phenomena of the notorious Salem witchcraft mania occurred in 1692, and Mather plunged into the discussion, and to convince the world wrote his Wonders of the Invisible World (1692). While it is true that his contemporaries fully shared his belief in witchcraft, none pursued the inquiry with such hateful zeal, and on the head of none rests a heavier burden of bloodguiltiness. Even himself afterwards confessed that 'there had been a going too far in that affair.' Mather died February 13, 1728.
The chief of his works is Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), an undigested mass of materials for the church history of New England. His feeble Essays to do Good (1710) was much esteemed by Franklin. His life was written by his son, Samuel Mather (1729). See also Charles W. Upham, History of the Salem Delusion, 1692 (1831); and the Rev. Enoch Pond, The Mather Family (1844).