Increase Mather

You know, "I saw them in a dream." Sound familiar? And, and so it'd be judge, jury, and executioner.

And it was Increase Mather, who was a minister, who stopped the Salem witch trials by applying due process, which is found in the scriptures, by two or three eyewitnesses before you bring an accusation.

And so they forbid spectral evidence, and they ended the Salem witch trials.

Nineteen died, 19 too many.

But like a well-written stage play, the tragedy which marred New England's colonial history came to an abrupt end at the very height of its horror.

Increase Mather, president of Harvard College and father of Cotton Mather, had all along entertained grave doubts of the competence of the specter evidence upon which so many persons had been condemned.

He ventured to voice these misgivings in a public address, and the afflicted children cried out against him.

Now, it was one thing for the humble pastor of a village church to be accused by these children of farmers and tradespeople, but quite another for the foremost divine and philosopher of a community which even then was the intellectual center of America to be made the target of their malice.

Suddenly, the authorities realized the machine they built was coming for them.

Prominent ministers in Boston, led by Increase Mather, started pushing back against the court's methods.

But the killing blow came from a man named Thomas Brattle.

Thomas Brattle was a wealthy merchant and a scientifically-minded intellectual.

[laughs]

Cotton Mather warned about the danger of relying on spectral evidence.

His father, Increase Mathers, Mather, I'm sorry.

Don't come for me.

Later argued strongly against using it as basis for convictions.

And the village had a noticeable social divide that was exasperated by a rivalry between its two leading families, the Porters, who had strong connections with Salem Town's wealthy merchants, and the Putnams, dun, dun, dun, them bitches, who tried to gain more independence and self-rule for the village, and were standard-bearers for the less prosperous farm families.

Around this exact year, Salem Village intensified its legal battles to separate from the town, build its own meeting house, and hire its own minister.

The structural polarization and community infighting directly laid the social groundwork for the paranoia of the Salem witch trials two decades later.

In 1670, Salem was in the grip of a real climate phenomenon known as the Little Ice Age.

Parris's Orthodox Puritans theology and preaching divided the congregation, a split that became undeniably visible when he routinely insisted that non-members of the congregation leave before communion was celebrated.

In the process, Salem divided into pro- and anti-Parris factions.

Some villagers believed the minister should have greater authority and should be properly supported financially.

Others thought Parris was demanding too much from the community.

She pressed that scarred leather directly against the rough stone of the cliffside.

You seek the marks of the devil, increased Mather, she cried.

But the mark you will find will be your own.

The stones you walk on will remember the blood you've spilled, and they will claim their tithe.

An increase fell forward, his stone arm wedged tightly in the crevice.

The stones began to contract, closing round him with an irresistible grinding force that crushed his ribs and spine.

And when a watchman found him the next day, Increase Mather Jr. was dead, completely embedded In the cliffside of gallows point.

His body fused with the granite.

I found

this family, the Mather family.

Who

is in the book.

Oh, yeah.

Because my person was the seventh president of Harvard.

He was Increase Mather.

And he's the father of Cotton Mather, who was, like, very important in the Salem witch trials.

The New England Puritans hated Halloween.

Reverend Increase Mather, a clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and forever linked with the notorious 17th century Salem witch trials, referred to it as an abominable shame and a vile piece of heathenism rooted in Catholicism.

The Puritans believed that the festival, like Christmas, was based in paganism and had close links to Satanism.

Today, Christian evangelists also denounce it as a quote, holiday that generally glorifies the dark things of this world rather than the light of Jesus Christ.