born Feb. 12, 1663, Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony
died Feb. 13, 1728, Boston
American Puritan leader.
The son of Increase Mather , he earned a master's degree from Harvard College and was ordained a Congregational minister in 1685, after which he assisted his father at Boston's North Church (16851723). He helped work for the ouster of the unpopular British governor of Massachusetts, Edmund Andros (1689). Though his writings on witchcraft fed the hysteria that resulted in the Salem witch trials , he disapproved of the trials and argued against the use of "spectral evidence." His best-known writings include Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), a church history of New England, and his Diary (171112). His Curiosa Americana (171224) won him membership in the Royal Society of London. He was an early supporter of smallpox inoculation. See also Congregationalism ; Puritanism .
Cotton Mather, portrait by Peter Pelham; in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, ...
Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.