COTTON MATHER

1663–1728

C otton Mather’s writings represent the peak of New England Puritan intellectual
life in its baroque phase: ornate, with a hint of decadence. The sense of a world-
view a bit past its prime and straining to recover preeminence emerges from many
accounts of his life and writings. Mather was the grandson of Richard Mather and
John Cotton, leading first-generation ministers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and
the son of another prominent minister, Increase Mather. These men published fre-
quently on theology, church polity, history, and the natural sciences. Young Cotton
Mather shouldered the burden of this inheritance, viewing it as a precious legacy for
the colony and, indeed, all of humanity, but he did so at some personal cost. He stam-
mered badly as a youth, and while he was able to overcome that debility well enough
to become a minister, throughout his life he continued to suffer from nervous disor-
ders that today we would probably call anxiety and depression. He had a reputation
for being pushy and difficult, and he alienated people with extreme behav ior, even
when he acted with the best intentions.
Tutored by his father, this precocious eldest son of a distinguished family was
admitted to Harvard College at the unusually young age of twelve. At Mather’s gradu-
ation, in 1678, President Urian Oakes told the commencement audience that his
hope was great that “in this youth, Cotton and Mather shall, in fact as well as name,
join together and once more appear in life”— a reference to the young man’s illustri-
ous grandfathers. Later, the pressures associated with living up to his family heritage
mounted. In 1685, his father began a long term as the president of Harvard, and for
four years starting in the late 1680s he served as New England’s envoy to England,
where he renegotiated favorable terms for the colonial charter. These were remark-
able accomplishments for any child to attempt to equal.
Mather remained for much of his adult life in his father’s shadow. He studied medi-
cine when it seemed that his stammer would prevent him from taking a pulpit, then
began serving as his father’s assistant pastor at Boston’s Second Church after Increase
became the president of Harvard. Cotton was later thwarted in his desire to follow his
father into the Harvard presidency, a source of lingering bitterness to him. He finally
became pastor at the Second Church after his father’s death, only five years before he
himself died. Frustrated professionally in certain ways, Mather devoted his consider-
able energy to the transatlantic republic of letters, involving himself in the major intel-
lectual questions of his day and writing on a wide variety of topics.
Mather experienced further disappointment and tragedy in his personal life. His
first two wives died, and his third wife became mentally ill. Of his fifteen children, only
six survived to adulthood, and just two lived until his death. His extended family put
uncomfortable demands on his financial resources. Despite these considerable respon-
sibilities, he was passionately committed to the common good as he understood it, and
he took great satisfaction in organizing societies for building churches, supporting
schools for the children of slaves, and working to establish funds for indigent clergy.
During Benjamin Franklin’s early years in Boston, he learned a great deal from Mather
about public ser vice, and those insights became central to Franklin’s life and writings.
Mather published over four hundred works. Some of his most engaging writings
deal with the witchcraft trials at Salem, which exemplify central tensions between
the Puritan worldview and an emerging, science-based modern order. Mather was
only indirectly involved in the prosecutions. His writings on the subject, in works

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such as The Wonders of the Invisible World (1693), contain both an apocalyptic nar-
rative of Satan’s assaults on godly New England and more neutral descriptions of
the supposed super natural manifestations and the legal proceedings designed to
stamp them out. Mather embraced the natural sciences warmly enough to earn
election in 1713 into London’s prestigious Royal Society, an organization founded
in 1660 to promote scientific investigation of the natural world. His later writings
included a medical compendium, and he took a public stand in favor of inoculation
during Boston’s smallpox epidemic in 1721–22. These facets of Mather’s intellec-
tual life are not as contradictory as they may appear. He studied the phenomena
associated with witchcraft in much the same manner as he sought to understand
other physical, mental, and spiritual phenomena.
While these publications suggest a major aspect of Mather’s thought, his historical
writings are what have earned him a significant place in American literary history.
The title page of Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) describes this epic work as an
“ecclesiastical history of New England.” In its seven volumes, however, Mather’s his-
tory focuses not only on the New England churches and Harvard, where its ministers
were trained, but also on representative lives of leading figures, accounts of the colo-
ny’s Indian wars, and much else. His biographical sketches, modeled on the first-
century Greek and Roman historian Plutarch and on Christian hagiographies (i.e.,
saint’s lives), present some of his most compelling writing. His biographies of William
Bradford, the longtime governor of the Plymouth Colony, and John Winthrop, leader
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, are among his finest literary achievements. The
Magnalia also includes Mather’s experiments in popular forms such as the captivity
tale, a genre that his father had helped usher into being through his involvement with
Mary Rowlandson’s narrative. The younger Mather contributed to the form with his
account of Hannah Dustan’s experiences as a captive, “A Notable Exploit.”
By the time Mather was writing his history of New England, the issues that seemed
most pressing to his parishioners were political and social rather than theological.
Mather defended the old order of church authority against the encroachment of an
increasingly secular world, noting in a diary entry for 1700 that “there was hardly any
but my father and myself to appear in defense of our invaded churches.” But he also
recast the Puritan perspective in ethical terms, producing what in essence were “con-
duct books” (represented here by selections from Bonifacius [1710], later reprinted as
Essays to Do Good). These works show him seeking to replace or augment the ever-
fragile political power of the clergy with moral chastisement and persuasion. Here
again, Mather shared an interest with Benjamin Franklin, whose Poor Richard’s
Almanack (1732–58) offers similar lessons in a more secular idiom. In a society
adjusting to new realities, Mather was a worldly Puritan.

From The Wonders of the Invisible World1

[A People of God in the Devil’s Territories]
The New Englanders are a people of God settled in those, which were once
the dev il’s territories; and it may easily be supposed that the devil was
exceedingly disturbed, when he perceived such a people here accomplishing
1. In May 1692, Governor William Phips of Mas- a last-ditch effort to undermine the Puritan ideal.
sachusetts appointed a Court of Oyer and Termi- He was skeptical of much of the evidence used
ner (“hear and determine”) in the cases against against the accused, especially as the trials pro-
some nineteen people in Salem accused of witch- ceeded in the summer of 1692, but like a number
craft. Mather had long been interested in the of prominent individuals in the community, he
subject of witchcraft, and in this work, written at made no public protest. The work was first pub-
the request of the judges, he describes the case lished in 1693; this text is from the reprint
against the accused. Mather, like many others, published by John Russell Smith in 1862.
saw the evidence of witchcraft as the dev il’s work,
 THE WONDER S OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD | 325

way of dealing, wherein witchcrafts use to be concerned; and I report

matters not as an advocate, but as an historian.

* * *
[The Trial of Martha Carrier]
at the court of oyer and terminer, held by adjournment
at salem, august 2, 1692
I. Martha Carrier was indicted for the bewitching certain persons, accord-
ing to the form usual in such cases, pleading not guilty to her indictment;
there were first brought in a considerable number of the bewitched persons
who not only made the court sensible8 of an horrid witchcraft committed
upon them, but also deposed that it was Martha Carrier, or her shape, that
grievously tormented them, by biting, pricking, pinching and choking of
them. It was further deposed that while this Carrier was on her examina-
tion before the magistrates, the poor people were so tortured that every one
expected their death upon the very spot, but that upon the binding of Car-
rier they were eased. Moreover the look of Carrier then laid the afflicted
people for dead; and her touch, if her eye at the same time were off them,
raised them again: which things were also now seen upon her trial. And it
was testified that upon the mention of some having their necks twisted
almost round, by the shape of this Carrier, she replied, “It’s no matter though
their necks had been twisted quite off.”
II. Before the trial of this prisoner, several of her own children had frankly
and fully confessed not only that they were witches themselves, but that this
their mother had made them so. This confession they made with great shows
of repentance, and with much demonstration of truth. They related place,
time, occasion; they gave an account of journeys, meetings and mischiefs
by them performed, and were very credible in what they said. Nevertheless,
this evidence was not produced against the prisoner at the bar,9 inasmuch
as there was other evidence enough to proceed upon.
III. Benjamin Abbot gave his testimony that last March was a twelve-
month,1 this Carrier was very angry with him, upon laying out some land
near her husband’s: her expressions in this anger were that she would stick
as close to Abbot as the bark stuck to the tree; and that he should repent of
it afore seven years came to an end, so as Doctor Prescot should never cure
him. These words were heard by others besides Abbot himself; who also
heard her say, she would hold his nose as close to the grindstone2 as ever it
was held since his name was Abbot. Presently after this, he was taken with
a swelling in his foot, and then with a pain in his side, and exceedingly tor-
mented. It bred into a sore, which was lanced by Doctor Prescot, and sev-
eral gallons of corruption3 ran out of it. For six weeks it continued very bad,
and then another sore bred in the groin, which was also lanced by Doctor
Prescot. Another sore then bred in his groin, which was likewise cut, and

8. Aware. face against the revolving sandstone used for

9. I.e., the defendant in court. grinding, smoothing, etc.
1. I.e., a year ago last March. 3. Pus; infected matter. “Lanced”: cut open.
2. I.e., literally, not metaphor ically, press his
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put him to very great misery: he was brought unto death’s door, and so
remained until Carrier was taken, and carried away by the constable, from
which [that] very day he began to mend, and so grew better every day, and
is well ever since.
Sarah Abbot also, his wife, testified that her husband was not only all this
while afflicted in his body, but also that strange, extraordinary and unac-
countable calamities befell his cattle; their death being such as they could
guess at no natural reason for.
IV. Allin Toothaker testified that Richard, the son of Martha Carrier, hav-
ing some difference with him, pulled him down by the hair of the head.
When he rose again he was going to strike at Richard Carrier but fell down
flat on his back to the ground, and had not power to stir hand or foot, until
he told Carrier he yielded; and then he saw the shape of Martha Carrier go
off his breast.
This Toothaker had received a wound in the wars; and he now testified
that Martha Carrier told him he should never be cured. Just afore the appre-
hending of Carrier, he could thrust a knitting needle into his wound four
inches deep; but presently after her being seized, he was thoroughly healed.
He further testified that when Carrier and he some times were at vari-
ance, she would clap her hands at him, and say he should get nothing by it;
whereupon he several times lost his cattle, by strange deaths, whereof no
natural causes could be given.
V. John Rogger also testified that upon the threatening words of this
malicious Carrier, his cattle would be strangely bewitched; as was more
particularly then described.
VI. Samuel Preston testified that about two years ago, having some dif-
ference with Martha Carrier, he lost a cow in a strange, preternatural,
unusual manner; and about a month after this, the said Carrier, having again
some difference with him, she told him he had lately lost a cow, and it should
not be long before he lost another; which accordingly came to pass; for he
had a thriving and well-kept cow, which without any known cause quickly
fell down and died.
VII. Phebe Chandler testified that about a fortnight before the apprehen-
sion of Martha Carrier, on a Lordsday,4 while the Psalm was singing in the
Church, this Carrier then took her by the shoulder and shaking her,
asked her, where she lived: she made her no answer, although as Carrier,
who lived next door to her father’s house, could not in reason but know who
she was. Quickly after this, as she was at several times crossing the fields,
she heard a voice, that she took to be Martha Carrier’s, and it seemed as if it
was over her head. The voice told her she should within two or three days be
poisoned. Accordingly, within such a little time, one half of her right hand
became greatly swollen and very painful; as also part of her face: whereof
she can give no account how it came. It continued very bad for some days;
and several times since she has had a great pain in her breast; and been so
seized on her legs that she has hardly been able to go. She added that lately,
going well to the house of God, Richard, the son of Martha Carrier, looked
very earnestly upon her, and immediately her hand, which had formerly

4. Sunday.
 THE WONDER S OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD | 327

been poisoned, as is abovesaid, began to pain her greatly, and she had a
strange burning at her stomach; but was then struck deaf, so that she could
not hear any of the prayer, or singing, till the two or three last words of the
Psalm.
VIII. One Foster, who confessed her own share in the witchcraft for which
the prisoner stood indicted, affirmed that she had seen the prisoner at some
of their witch-meetings, and that it was this Carrier, who persuaded her to
be a witch. She confessed that the devil carried them on a pole to a witch-
meeting; but the pole broke, and she hanging about Carrier’s neck, they both
fell down, and she then received an hurt by the fall, whereof she was not at
this very time recovered.
IX. One Lacy, who likewise confessed her share in this witchcraft, now
testified, that she and the prisoner were once bodily present at a witch-
meeting in Salem Village; and that she knew the prisoner to be a witch, and
to have been at a diabolical sacrament, and that the prisoner was the undo-
ing of her and her children by enticing them into the snare of the devil.
X. Another Lacy, who also confessed her share in this witchcraft, now tes-
tified, that the prisoner was at the witch-meeting, in Salem Village, where
they had bread and wine administered unto them.
XI. In the time of this prisoner’s trial, one Susanna Sheldon in open court
had her hands unaccountably tied together with a wheel-band5 so fast that
without cutting, it could not be loosed: it was done by a specter; and the
sufferer affirmed it was the prisoner’s.

Memorandum. This rampant hag, Martha Carrier, was the person of

whom the confessions of the witches, and of her own children among the
rest, agreed that the devil had promised her she should be Queen of
Hebrews.
1692 1693

5. A strap that goes around a wheel.