Monday, November 4, 2019

An Aged Person




Being Cotton Mather's brother couldn't have been easy.

The Mathers all seem to have been overachievers -- Increase Mather, the family patriarch, was president of Harvard.  Nathanael's brothers, Cotton and Samuel, were both Harvard-educated ministers.  Nathanael entered Harvard at the tender age of 12(!) and earned a degree (his first) at 16.  He"excelled" and was called "extraordinary."  At age 14, he dedicated his life to God ... and that is perhaps when his health began to decline.  Noted Salem historian Sidney Perley tells us that, "His dedication consisted of devotion to prayer for personal sanctity, and he deliberated so much and so seriously that had became morbid and melancholy." 


Perley goes on to say that "He had contracted ill habits of posture of body, which, persisted in, produced effects which made him appear like an old man."  



Nathanael earned a second degree from Harvard and that's when he health seem to have become a serious problem for him.  He came to Salem seeking treatment under a Dr. Swinnerton; future Salem witch trials judge Samuel Sewall (the judge who would later apologize for his involvement in the hangings, and call for a day of fasting and prayer and atonement) visited, as did Nathanael's older brother, Cotton.  Sickly and worn out, Nathanael died at the doctor's house on October 17th, 1688.  Cotton closed Nathanael's eyes and is said to have written his epitaph --

Mr.
Nathanael Mather
Decd October ye 17th 
1688
An Aged person
That had seen but
Nineteen Winters
in the World.

He didn't die in the wintertime, and so the use of "Winters" as opposed to "Summers" underscores the sense of loss here.   


Dr. Donna Seger has also written about this on her blog, The Streets of Salem, which is well worth your attention. 


https://streetsofsalem.com/2016/01/27/the-most-poignant-epitaph-ever/ 


(I apologize for the quality of the photo above; it was the best I could do, racing into the cemetery just before it was (illegally) locked up.  I couldn't come back the next day when the light was better.  And no, that's not an "orb" at the top, it's lens flare.  Grow up.) 


UPDATE:  With the cemetery reopened, I was able to go back yesterday and get a better photo of Nathanael's headstone.  I did not realize, upon my first visit, that he is laid to rest next to Dr. Swinnerton and his wife, so I have added their stones as well.  I may look up the Swinnertons and do a post on them in the future.   



   

    

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