Cotton Mather
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Cotton Mather was a Puritan clergyman and author in colonial New England, who wrote extensively on theological, historical, and scientific subjects. After being educated at Harvard College, he joined
Portrait by Peter Pelham, 1727
John Cotton (1585–1652)
Holograph copy of Cotton Mather's letter of advice to John Richards concerning the impending trials at Salem, May 31, 1692
The Return of Several Ministers, written in Cotton Mather's hand
Salem witch trials
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The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirt
Cotton Mather
…the successful revolt of 1689 against Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of New England appointed by King James II. Mather's subsequent involvement in the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693, which he defended in the book Wonders of the Invisible World (1693), attracted intense controversy in his own day and has negatively…
Fanciful representation of the Salem witch trials, lithograph from 1892
Two alleged witches being accused in the Salem witch trials, 1892 engraving
1688 portrait of Increase Mather by Joan van der Spriet