Cotton Mather

Rare card · No. 59233

Cotton Mather (; February 12, 1663 – February 15, 1728) was a Puritan theologian, scientist and chronicler active in British America. After being educated at Harvard College, he joined his father Increase Mather as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House in Boston, then part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he preached for the rest of his life and was active in local politics. Mather was a prolific author concerning subjects such as witchcraft, medicine, religion and contemporary events. Cotton Mather was one of the leaders of the successful revolt of 1689 against Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of New England appointed by King James II. Mather's subsequent involvement in the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693, which he defended in the book Wonders of the Invisible World (1693), attracted intense controversy in his own day and has negatively affected his historical reputation. As a historian of colonial New England, Mather is noted for his Magnalia Christi Americana...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Peter Pelham, Public domain