The Last American Puritan: The Life of Increase Mather, 1639–1723

CHAPTER 2. The Struggle for Identity [1661-1672]

CHAPTER 2 The Strugglefor Identity {1661-1672} The return voyage was mercifully quick and safe. Increase Mather's ship reached the fishing camps on Newfoundland's southeast coast in August 1661 and after a wait of only ten days—he thought himself lucky—he took passage on a New England vessel headed back to Boston. He landed on September i during the last days of New England's summer and went directly to his father's home in Dorchester. Eleazar was there, too, and the three men held an emotional reunion. The next day Richard Mather "shining like the Sun in Gemini, and hearing his two sons, in his own pulpit entertain the People of God, . . . [was] an Happy Father." ' Increase Mather had offers from a dozen towns across New England but wanted none of them. Seldom did a prospective minister in New England have so many opportunities. "People are apt to run after strangers though they have little in them ofreal worth," he wrote about himself with unfamiliar modesty.2 His degree from Trinity College and several years of preaching in England gave him an extra measure of glamour. So did the reputations of his father and brothers, a family dedicated to the service of God. His own exceptional abilities as a scholar and the piety demonstrated by his having been, as he said, persecuted for his faith, all helped explain his high reputation when he was still untried at twenty-two. The irony was that Increase did not want to stay in Massachusetts at all. Massachusetts was a poor and uncouth frontier compared to England . He considered himself in exile. "Thus wasI persecuted out of two Struggle for Identity 49} places, Glocester and Guernsey, before I was 22 years of age," he wrote later.' But in fact Increasewas home. With the flavor of the great world still in his mouth, he looked on his rustic surroundings with distaste asa temporary setback, an exile entered into for conscience's sake. But his family and friends saw it differently and offered no sympathy. He confided his anger and frustration to his diary. The only offer to preach that seemed halfway suitable was to assist John Mayo at Boston's North Church. What made this offer tolerable was its location in Boston, the only New England town with even a semblance of sophistication. SoIncrease became a "hireling preacher," a man who preached to a congregation for money but stood outside its covenant and in no more meaningful relationship to the members of the congregation than to be paid for his services. He did join a church, but joined his father's in Dorchester, not the North Church, where he preached. "The first winter after my Return," he wrote, "I preached one Lords day with my Father at dorchester, and the other Lords day at Boston to the congregation where I still continue."4 When Mather crossed Mill Creek on his way to his new church, he was in Boston's North End. The meetinghouse there stood about three hundred yards north of the stream, in an area of open fields and scattered houses, not far from the water's edge, where wharves and warehouses were already going up. The meetinghouse , now ten years old, had been enlarged with two galleries to hold the growing North End population. When Mather stood in the pulpit to preach, it was as if he stood on the stage of a small, unpainted opera house with orchestra below and balconies rising. The rough-hewn clapboard building, while not at all what he had dreamed of in England, was ideal for his talents, and he quickly made a name for himself as a preacher. MARRIAGE AND FAMILY Seven months after coming home, Increase married young Maria Cotton, his step-sister since his father's remarriage in 1656. Shewas now twenty-one.5 The historical record tells nothing about their courtship. It does confirm that both were four or five years younger than the customary age of first marriage in New England. Cautious heads might have counselled waiting, and they would have been wrong. The marriage lasted half a century, during which time Maria raised a large family and managed the household by herself. Like most wives of her generation, [50 The Last American Puritan her life was in the background of Increase's public concerns and little about it is known. Like Increase, Maria kept...