American Congregational minister Cotton Mather.

Cotton Mather

(1663 - 1728)

Born in Boston in 1663, Cotton Mather at the age of eighteen received his MA from Harvard College; his father, Increase, became president of the school in 1685. As preachers at the same church in Boston during the Salem witch trials, he and his father opposed the use of spectral evidence, although Cotton believed that witches, as part of “an army of devils,” desired to destroy the “New-English Israel.” Twenty men and women were killed during the witch hunt.

All Writing

’Tis the destroyer, or the devil, that scatters plagues about the world.

—Cotton Mather, 1693

Voices In Time

1693 | Boston

Higher Law

The devil, adversary at law.More

Is this dying? Is this all? Is this all that I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh, I can bear this! I can bear it!

—Cotton Mather, 1728

Issues Contributed