Last week, Lisa and I visited the Copps Hill Burying Ground near the Old North Church in Boston’s North End. I had walked by it a few times before but never gone in because it is sooo close to the end of the Freedom Trail, and our guests are usually ready for the long walk to be over. I had a tip (via the Internet) that some of my relatives are buried there, so we finally went in.

I will give you the full rundown of the cemetery itself soon, but you might be interested in my family’s particular connection to this country that was so new to many of the people buried in Copps Hill.

It starts with Richard Mather, the Puritan preacher of diminished means who came to Massachusetts Bay in 1635, fifteen years after the Mayflower arrived. The Puritans in America have their closest modern counterparts in the Ayatollahs of Iran, men who parlay religious authority into authoritarian political control. Richard’s son Increase Mather became one of the most influential men in New England. Increase’s son Cotton Mather carried on the family tradition, publishing prolifically on religious matters and is notoriously linked to the Salem witchcraft hysteria after giving expert testimony about how to identify “spectral evidence.” Increase is my tenth great-grand-uncle (once removed).

  1. John Mather of Lowton, Winwich Parish, Lancashire County, England
  2. Thomas Mather, Yeoman of Lowton
  3. Rev. Richard Mather (1596-1669) — He emigrated to Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1635
  4. Timothy Mather (1628-1684) — married Catherine Atherton. [1]
  5. Atherton Mather (1663-1734) — married Rebecca Stoughton. [2]
  6. William Mather (1698-1747)
  7. Timothy Mather (1722-1802)
  8. Timothy Mather (1757-1818) — married Hannah Church. [3]
  9. Timothy Mather (1785-1858) — married Harriet Adams. [4]
  10. John Adams Mather (1822-1875) — [5]
  11. James Sherman Mather (1852-1933) — married Emma Elizabeth Fanning. [6]
  12. Clarence Mather (1888-1975)
  13. Richard Mather (1915-1979?)
  14. Dennis Mather (1942- )
  15. Me (1974- )

[1] — Catherine Atherton was the daughter of Major General Humphry Atherton, who purchased land from the Narragansett Indians under false pretenses. The Major’s grandson Humphry Atherton, Jr., apparently owned some fellow human beings, as well. (According to the probate record, Atherton left “Mentions Cuffee, a Negro Man £300″ to his heirs.)

[2] — Rebecca Stoughton was the granddaughter of Hon. William Stoughton, the Lord High Witch-Presser in the Salem Witch Trials. There’s a Stoughton, Mass., too.

[3] — Hannah Church was the daughter of John Church and Jemima Montague of Hadley, Mass. So, it’s likely that I’m related to the family that gave Montague, Mass. its name.

[4] — Harriet Adams is a descendant of John Alden, a Mayflower passenger. Her parents came from Milton and Braintree, so it’s almost certain that I’m also related to two American presidents, though I’m still working on the link.

Update: If you go four generations up the family tree from President John Adams (or five from President John Quincey Adams) you will find Henry Adams and Edith Squire. Their seventh son, Joseph, begat the presidential family line. A descendant of Joseph’s younger brother, Henry, married into the Mather family in 1812. It’s a very distant link.

My link to the common ancestor…

  1. Henry Adams (1582/3 - 1646) m. Edith Squire (1587 - 1672/3)
  2. Edward Adams (1629 - 1716)
  3. John Adams (unknown)
  4. Edward Adams (1682/3 - 1743)
  5. John Adams, Dea. (1708/9 - 1790)
  6. Edward Adams (1738/39 - 1825) m. Dorothy Spear (1743/4 - 1802)
  7. Harriet Adams (1787 - 1828) m. Timothy Mather (1785 - 1858)

The presidents’ link to the common ancestor…

  1. Henry Adams (1582/3 - 1646) m. Edith Squire (1587 - 1672/3)
  2. Joseph Adams (1625/6 - 1694)
  3. Joseph Adams, Jr. (1654 - 1736/7)
  4. John Adams, Dea. (1690/1 - 1761)
  5. John Adams, President (1735 - 1826)
  6. John Q. Adams (1767 - 1848)

[5] — John Adams Mather was the guy who brought my family from New England to the Midwest. He first settled as a young man in western New York then moved his family to Wisconsin in 1857 and later to Minnesota.

[6] — Emma Fanning is a direct descendant of William Bradford, another Mayflower passenger and the second Colonial Governor of Massachusetts. I think we’re also related (indirectly) through her to the explorer Edmund Fanning.



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