Cotton Mather
Puritan Cleric
1663-1728
"an Army of Devils is horribly broke in upon the
place which is our center."
-Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather remains one of the most famous religious figures from the early New England Puritan society. As a youth, he had a speech problem, a stammer, which prevented him from developing self confidence. As a result, he studied the classics (Greek Latin, Hebrew), science and medicine and became an excellent writer on both scientific and religious subjects. Receiving his Harvard degree at the young age of sixteen, Cotton went on to join his father, Increase Mather, as pastor of the Second Church in Boston. Later, Cotton Mather became the minister of Boston's Old North Church. He wrote over 400 essays and books. His writing also tells a very good account of the first 50 years in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Cotton Mather was a true believer in witchcraft. In 1688, he had investigated the strange behavior of four children of a Boston mason named John Goodwin. The children had been complaining of sudden pains and crying out together in chorus. He was convinced that witchcraft was responsible for the children's problems. His sermons and written works fanned the flames of the witchcraft hysteria. He declared that the Devil was at work in Salem, and that witches should face the harshest punishment. He became a major influence during the Salem witch trials, during which many people, were hanged.
Later on, when confessed witches began denying their testimony, Mather may have begun to have doubts about at least some of the trials. He revised his own position on the use of spectral evidence and tried to minimize his own large role in its consideration in the Salem trials. Later in life, Mather turned away from the supernatural and may have begun to question whether or not there ever were witches..
Cotton Mather's tomb is in the Copp's Hill Burying Ground in Boston.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SAL_BMAT.HTM