Increase Mather

Increase Mather was born on 21 June 1639 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the son of Richard Mather and his first wife Katherine Holt. He married his stepsister, Maria Cotton (d.1714), daughter of Reverend John Cotton (1584-1652) and Sarah Hawkridge Story. He married second, Ann Lake Cotton, his nephew's widow. He was President of Harvard College, and pastor of the North Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He died on 23 August 1723.