Mather, Cotton

Mather, Cotton ( 1663 – 1728 ),
Presbyterian divine of Boston, Massachusetts, a narrow, self-righteous minister and voluminous writer, one of the best-known examples of the tyrannical Puritan ministers of his time in New England. He was noted for the part he played in the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 , on which he commented in his best-known work, Magnalia Christi Americana ( 1702 ).