Cotton Mather

Born in Boston in 1663, Cotton Mather grew up in one of New England’s most influential clerical families and later joined his father, Increase Mather, in the ministry at Boston’s Old North Church. He became one of colonial America’s busiest men of letters, producing hundreds of sermons, books, and pamphlets over the course of his life.

His best-known book is Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), a sweeping religious history of New England that helped shape how early colonial society remembered itself. Mather also wrote about science and natural phenomena, and his observations helped earn him recognition from the Royal Society in London.

He remains a complicated historical figure. Many readers know him because of his association with the Salem witchcraft crisis, though his role is still discussed with nuance by historians. He is also remembered for backing smallpox inoculation during Boston’s 1721 epidemic, a position that made him a prominent and sometimes embattled advocate for new medical ideas in early America.