Mather, Samuel
clergyman, author, was born Oct. 30, 1706, in Boston, Mass. He was a congregational clergyman of Boston who succeeded his father and grandfather as pastor of the North church, but in 1741 became the head of a new church, of which he was pastor till his death. He was the author of Life of Cotton Mather; Essay on Gratitude; and America Known to the Ancients, an attempt to prove the Japhetic origin of the first inhabitants of the American continent. He died June 27, 1785, in Boston, Mass.