jun 21, 1639 - Increase Mather

Description:

Increase a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years.

He was influential in the administration of the colony during a time that coincided with the notorious Salem witch trials.

Born: June 21, 1639, Dorchester, Boston, MA

Died: August 23, 1723, Boston, MA

Education:
Harvard College
Trinity College, Dublin

Occupation:
Minister and author

Children:
Cotton Mather
Elizabeth Mather
Samuel Mather
Abigail Mather
Sarah Walter

Granddaughters:
Abigail Mather
Hannah Trowbridge
Mary Sumner

Great grandchildren:
Hannah Mather Crocker
Rebecca Walter
Mary Byles
Katherine Byles
Sarah Ward
Sarah Walter
Elizabeth Byles Brown
Sarah Wiliams Patten
William Walter

In 1681, the same year he became president of Harvard (and when his son Cotton Mather was only eighteen years old), Increase began work on a manuscript that was to be a collection of "illustrious providences" and he solicited contributions from the other Puritan ministers.

This work demonstrated a belated interest in witchcraft relative to the European continent, where witch trials had gone into a steep decline after reaching "peak intensity during the century 1570–1670" but this reflected a similar belated interest among a certain milieu in London around the same time.

His book "Remarkable Providences" was published in 1684 and forwards a doctrinal belief in the real power of witchcraft. One of the more curious aspects of the book is that while it cites numerous Reformation theologians (Luther, Beza, Melancthon) and many well-known writers on witchcraft including Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer (author of the notorious witch-hunting manual Malleus Maleficarum), it does not cite John Calvin.

In November 1692, he published 'Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits' which defended the judges and trials, but also expressed words of caution, perhaps due to public pressure.

In the postscript, included with the initial first edition of the book, he mentions his own attendance at the trial of George Burroughs and his agreement with the capital judgment against him. George Burroughs had been a fellow minister who seems to have substituted at the pulpit for Increase Mather on at least one occasion. Like his work from 1684, this 1692 work also cites Malleus Maleficarum.

His reputation was not improved afterwards or for posterity due to his association with the trials as well as his subsequent refusal, for whatever reasons, to denounce them.

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