In a letter dated September 2, 1692, Cotton Mather wrote to judge William Stoughton. [1] Among the notable things about this letter is the provenance: it seems to be the last important correspondence from Mather to surface in the modern era, with the holograph manuscript not arriving in the archives for scholars to view, and authenticate, until sometime between 1978 and 1985. [2]
On August 19, 1692, five accused individuals had been executed in Salem, Massachusetts, [3] bringing the total to eleven (reaching twenty by the end of September). Mather had attended this execution and one account shows him giving a speech on horseback that seemed to quiet a crowd that had been calling for mercy for the accused. [4]
Cotton Mather begins the September 2 letter by writing that he has "made the world sensible of my zeal to assist... your honour...[in the] extinguishing of as wonderful a piece of devilism as has been seen in the world; and yet... one half of my endeavors to serve you have not been told or seen." [5] Further alluding to the care and subterfuge he employs in his presentation, he writes, "I have laboured to divert the thoughts of my readers, even with something of a designed contrivance..." He asks for Stoughton's permission and approbation in writing on the specifics of the current trials. This suggests Mather's later claim that his book was "commanded" by colonial Governor William Phips may have been an inversion of the truth, as Phips letter on October 10, 1692, says he "put a stop to the printing of any discourses one way or other". [6] [7]
Accompanying his letter on September 2, Mather sends a lengthy portion of the book he has already written, telling Stoughton to feel free to skip the first 34 pages. [8] Yet he says he has "not included all the papers mentioned in my title". [9] Against this backdrop, and the "swelling public outcry" of August, Stacy Schiff concludes that Mather's book must be viewed as "a propaganda piece" [10] departing from a common late twentieth-century view of the book as a "defense" of the trials. [11]
Stoughton responded enthusiastically to the September 2 letter, and his personal endorsement of the forthcoming Wonders is reprinted in the preface (p. vi-vii). [12] [13] Stoughton's response specifically recommends that the book be committed "unto the PRESS". Stoughton may have aided Mather in circumventing Phips and in the book's preface Mather credits Stoughton for giving him a "shield" to ship the book "abroad" to England where it arrived by the end of December and was hastily printed and published. [14] [15]
...the Lieutenant-Governor of New England having perused it, has done me the honor of giving me a Shield, under the umbrage whereof I now dare to walk Abroad. (Wonders preface p. vi.)
But a major goal of Mather, as expressed in the September 2 letter, was quickly obtaining copies of the official trial records, and in this he seems to have been further stalled, as can be seen in his letter to the trial clerk Stephen Sewall on September 20, 1692. [16] Mather probably did not receive these records until September 22, 1692 when Stephen Sewall traveled to Boston for a meeting at his brother's house with Mather and Stoughton. [17]
There are some indications that the arrival of the holograph of this letter in the archives may have come as an unwelcome surprise to some twentieth-century scholars of the colonial period. [18] David Levin points out that the letter demonstrates the timeline used by both "Thomas J. Holmes and Perry Miller" is off by "three weeks." Writing in the same year as Levin, 1985, Harold Jantz had submitted an essay describing various frauds and fakes and he included the AAS typescript copy of what he calls the "Stoughton letter" (September 2, 1692) calling it a "nasty, pathological" forgery "intended to make Cotton Mather put his worst foot forward in connection with the witchcraft trials." But in an addendum to the essay, Jantz writes that just before publication "barely in time for this added note, new information reached me about the letter... at present the manuscript is firmly labeled as 'original' and 'holograph'" [19] Yet as Jantz continues the essay, he still seems to harbor suspicions, referring to the letter's "author" instead of Mather. "What if it should turn out that the Stoughton letter cannot be proved to be a forgery?" Jantz writes. "This would make it doubly fascinating, doubly perplexing." And "would require that we rewrite Cotton Mather's biography as two Cotton Mather's biographies." [20]
The same year as the Jantz essay, 1985, Kenneth Silverman had been awarded a Pulitzer and a Bancroft Prize for a biography of Mather published the year before, 1984. [21] Unlike Jantz, Silverman's introduction to the September 2, 1692 letter in his book of Mather correspondence (1971) does not directly dispute the authenticity of the letter beyond saying the holograph could not be located, but his basic assessment of Mather ("he did not want to defend [the trials]") [22] suggests that Silverman, like TJ Holmes, Perry Miller, Jantz (and also perhaps Levin, who published a biography of Mather in 1978), did not previously believe the typescript copy of the letter was authentic and this would have affected work conducted prior to the knowledge of the holograph in 1985.
Also published in 1985, and written presumably before the holograph of the letter reached the archives, David D. Hall strikes a triumphant note for the revision led by GL Kittredge at Harvard. "With him one great phase of interpretation came to a dead end." [23] Hall writes that whether the old interpretation favored by "antiquarians" had begun with the "malice of Robert Calef or deep hostility to Puritanism," either way "such notions are no longer... the concern of the historian." But David Hall notes "one minor exception. Debate continues on the attitude and role of Cotton Mather... though none of his recent biographers is at all interested in making him responsible for Salem..." Hall mentions both Levin and Silverman. In 1991, Hall published "Witch-hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History." Hall does not publish or mention the recently controversial Sept. 2 letter and in a footnote Hall writes, "The circumstances under which Mather composed Wonders... are admirably sketched by Thomas J. Holmes..." [24]
Associated with the holograph in the Burns Library is a faint one-page typescript leaflet, dated April 7, 1943. [25] The leaflet is a description of three Mather A.L.S. (Autograph Letter Signed) being offered for sale. The leaflet begins:
These three Cotton Mather A.L.S. are addressed to William Stoughton who presided at the Trials of the Witches in Salem and these letters pertain entirely to Witchcraft. Being written to William Stoughton, they are of the greatest importance. According to Mr. Brigham of the American Antiquarian Society, there is a similar letter, same as the longest one here, written to John Richards which is an exact copy of this letter. The reason Mr. Brigham is sure that the Richards letter is a copy is because it is on 2 1/2 pages whereas the enclosed is 4 pages.
The leaflet concludes:
Mr. Brigham offered me $500 for this which means that it is worth from $1000 to $1500 for he is a good buyer and very conservative in price. He considers this one of the best finds in A.L.S. in years.
Of the three A. L. S. being offered, the letter to John Richards dated May 31, 1692, is the primary one discussed in the leaflet. This letter was previously known via a copy ascribed to Mather but not written in Mather's hand. [26] A second A.L.S., the "Return of Several Ministers" is mentioned only in passing. The third A.L.S., the letter of September 2, 1692, and subject of this article, is not mentioned explicitly at all. Although this letter is of extremely high research value, the seller apparently did not think its value to collectors would be as great as the other two well-known documents. The leaflet also mentions showing the three A.L.S. to Mr. Brigham of the American Antiquarian Society, offering a clue as to the origin and date of the Society's typescript copy of the Sept 2, 1692 letter.
According to Jantz, the original manuscript of the letter was sold by the widow of the collector who once owned it to the Boston College and David Levin had reaffirmed the authenticity and "double checked with some of the experts who had verified Mather's handwriting at the time of acquisition..." and found the paper "of the right age." Neither Jantz nor Levin seem to have noted that the letter could be further verified by a line of handwriting by Stoughton (the AAS typescript also contains this line at the end, copied with a pen) a paraphrased version of this opening line was reprinted by Mather in his book some weeks later. [27] Stacy Schiff, writing thirty years after Jantz and Levin, seems to be the first person on record to take notice of this fact, "Stoughton began his fulsome reply on the verso."
Schiff also might be the first scholar, following Jantz and Levin, to note the location of the holograph at the John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections at Boston College. [28]
Between 1985 and 2015, there appears to have been little notice of what Jantz called the "doubly fascinating, doubly perplexing" letter, or its location and availability for scholarship in the archives, including the interest that coincided with the tercentenary of the trials in 1992. [29]
Writing in 2002, Mary Beth Norton seems to accept the Sept. 2 letter's authenticity and quotes some milder passages, citing the reprint in Silverman (1971). It is unclear whether Norton was aware of the controversy around the letter expressed in 1985. In the citation, Norton does not address the Kittredge-Holmes-Miller lineage, which David D. Hall had praised in early 1985, but Norton distances her work from chapter 13 of Perry Miller's 1953 book (Miller cites TJ Holmes for this chapter). Miller's book, she writes, contains "an interpretation of Mather's work on Wonders that differs considerably from mine." [30]
Clive Holmes in a 2016 essay underscores the importance of the content of the September 2 letter and makes note of the typescript at AAS (but not the holograph at Boston College) and suggests Silverman's abridgment of the letter in 1971 was overly severe. [31] If Silverman was working within a lineage that distrusted the authenticity of the AAS typescript, as the 1985 essays by Jantz and Levin suggest, it would be understandable why his reprint of the letter in 1971 was truncated.
Digital copies of the letter are now available via email from both the AAS (original typescript) and Boston College (holograph).
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 his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House in Boston, Massachusetts, where he preached for the rest of his life. He has been referred to as the "first American Evangelical".
The Wonders of the Invisible World was a book written by Cotton Mather and published in 1693. It was subtitled, Observations As well Historical as Theological, upon the Nature, the Number, and the Operations of the Devils. The book defended Mather's role in the witchhunt conducted in Salem, Massachusetts. It espoused the belief that witchcraft was an evil magical power. Mather saw witches as tools of the devil in Satan's battle to "overturn this poor plantation, the Puritan colony", and prosecution of witches as a way to secure God's blessings for the colony.
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. Thirty people were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. One other man, Giles Corey, died under torture after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in the disease-ridden jails.
Increase Mather was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administration of the colony during a time that coincided with the notorious Salem witch trials.
John Hathorne was a merchant and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem, Massachusetts. He is best known for his early and vocal role as one of the leading judges in the Salem witch trials.
Spectral evidence is a form of legal evidence based upon the testimony of those who claim to have experienced visions.
Michael Wigglesworth (1631–1705) was a Puritan minister, physician, and poet whose poem The Day of Doom was a bestseller in early New England.
Sir William Phips was born in Maine in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was of humble origin, uneducated, and fatherless from a young age but rapidly advanced from shepherd boy to shipwright, ship's captain, and treasure hunter, the first New England native to be knighted, and the first royally appointed governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Phips was famous in his lifetime for recovering a large treasure from a sunken Spanish galleon but is perhaps best remembered today for establishing the court associated with the infamous Salem Witch Trials, which he grew unhappy with and was forced to prematurely disband after five months.
Bridget Bishop was the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. Nineteen were hanged, and one, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. Altogether, about 200 people were tried.
William Stoughton was a New England Puritan magistrate and administrator in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He was in charge of what have come to be known as the Salem Witch Trials, first as the Chief Justice of the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692, and then as the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693. In these trials he controversially accepted spectral evidence. Unlike some of the other magistrates, he never admitted to the possibility that his acceptance of such evidence was in error.
George Burroughs was a non-ordained Puritan preacher who was the only minister executed for witchcraft during the course of the Salem witch trials. He is remembered especially for reciting the Lord's Prayer during his execution, something it was believed a witch could never do.
Mary Webster was a resident of colonial New England who was accused of witchcraft and was the target of an attempted lynching by friends of the accuser.
Goody Ann Glover was an Irish former indentured servant and the last person to be hanged in Boston as a witch, although the Salem witch trials in nearby Salem, Massachusetts, occurred mainly in 1692.
This timeline of the Salem witch trials is a quick overview of the events.
The Bury St Edmunds witch trials were a series of trials conducted intermittently between the years 1599 and 1694 in the town of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, England.
Robert Calef was a cloth merchant in colonial Boston. He was the author of More Wonders of the Invisible World, a book composed throughout the mid-1690s denouncing the recent Salem witch trials of 1692–1693 and particularly examining the influential role played by Cotton Mather.
Deodat Lawson was a British American minister in Salem Village from 1684 to 1688 and is famous for a 10-page pamphlet describing the witchcraft accusations during the Salem Witch Trials in the early spring of 1692. The pamphlet was billed as "collected by Deodat Lawson" and printed within the year in Boston, Massachusetts.
Thomas Brattle was an American merchant who served as treasurer of Harvard College and member of the Royal Society. He is known for his involvement in the Salem Witch Trials and the formation of the Brattle Street Church.
Sarah Cloys/Cloyce was among the many accused during Salem Witch Trials including two of her older sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey, who were both executed. Cloys/Cloyce was about 50-years-old at the time and was held without bail in cramped prisons for many months before her release.
