Person:Timothy Mather (2)

The Life of Timothy Mather

"Timothy Mather was the only son of the emigrant that grew up to manhood who was not a preacher and is called the 'Mather farmer' of the early time, and settled in the town with his father. His brothers Samuel and Nathaniel went back to Europe and were noted preachers. Eleazer was the first minister in Northampton, Mass., where he died the same year his father. Rev. Dr. Increase, settled in Boston. Timothy had a fall in his barn, which resulted in his death at the age of 56 years.

Maj. Gen. Humphrey Atherton, his father-in-law, was a distinguished man in the colony. They are buried in 'Upham's Corner Cemetery.' All persons in this country by the name of Mather who descend from the New England Mathers can be traced directly to Timothy Mather, as the name ceases in all the other lines with Samuel Mather, the grandson of Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather. S. M. died in 1813.

Many Mathers in this country claim descent from Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather, but they are mistaken. There have been a number of Cotton Mathers later who have M. descendants.

The Mathers now are from the three grandsons of Rev. Richard, who settled in Connecticut, Rev. Samuel (of Windsor branch), Richard (of Lyme branch), or Atherton (of Suffield branch)."^[3]

From Rev. Richard Mather's Will

… " ' concerning my son Timothy inasmuch as he hath not had so much cost bestowed upon him in his education as his brethren have had, therefore I think it meet I should otherwise bestow on him & his a greater portion of my outward estate & therefore as I have some years since given & assured to him in land, meadow, barn & other building, in cows, oxen, bedding, household stuff & otherwise a considerable portion not much less than two hundred pounds in value, as I suppose if not more so upon condition that he the said Timothy shall faithfully discharge & pay the several legacies & gifts abovementioned with whatever I shall mention hereafter by my last will or otherwise, upon these conditions I give to him the said Timothy all my house, barn, buildings & lands in Dorchester whatsoever or wheresoever the same be whether in the home lots or in the neck of land or in the great lots or in the commons or cow walk or wheresoever' " …^[1]

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Richard Mather, in Anderson, Robert Charles; George F. Sanborn; and Melinde Lutz Sanborn. The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. (Boston, Massachusetts: NEHGS, 1999-2011)
   5:87, 88.

   Timothy Mather, b. about 1628.

2. ↑ Timothy Mather, in Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862)
   3:175.

   Timothy (Mather), Dorchester, s. of Richard, b. in Eng. m. Catharine [Eliz.], d. of Humphrey Atherton, had Samuel, b. 5, bapt. 7 Sept. 1651, H. C. 1671, bef. ment.; Nathaniel, bapt. 30 Jan. 1653, prob. d. very soon, wh. may explain the fail. of entry of b.; Richard, 22, bapt. 25 Dec. 1653, bef. ment. (of course not bapt. on Wednesday, 2 Nov. of that yr. as print. in Geneal. Reg. III. 280); Catharine, 6, bapt. 13 Jan. 1656; Nathaniel, again, 2, bapt. 5 Sept. 1658; Joseph, 25, bapt. 26 May 1661; and Atherton, 4 Oct. 1663, bef. ment.; and he d. 14 Jan. 1685, by falling from a scaffold in his barn, says Blake's Ann. His wid. Eliz. wh. he had m. 20 Mar. 1680, d. 20 Feb. 1710, aged 70 yrs.

3. ↑ 5 Timothy Mather, in Mather, Horace E. Lineage of Rev. Richard Mather. (Hartford, Conn.: Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company, 1890)
   54-55.

   5 Timothy Mather (son of Rev. Richard, Thomas, John), of Dorchester, Mass. Born in Liverpool, England, 1628; d. in Dorchester, Mass., Jan. 14, 1684; married (1) Catharine, daughter of Maj.-Gen. Humphrey Atherton; (2) Elizabeth, daughter of Amiel Weeks [widow of William Weeks], March 20, 1678-9.

4. ↑ Timothy Mather, in Find A Grave.