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.