Richard Mather

Richard Mather of Dorchester and Lyme, son of Timothy Mather, "the Mather farmer," and named for his grandfather Rev. Richard Mather. Like his father he was a farmer.

King Philip's War. In December 1675, at twenty-one, he rode out in Capt. Thomas Prentice's troop for the Narragansett campaign, among the Suffolk men of Capt. William Davis's quota, from Roxbury, Dorchester, Braintree and other towns. The list endorsed "Capt. Prentise's 73 Troopers" has: "Troopers belonging to Captin Davis. William Kent, John Ruggles, Sampson Chester, William Towers, ... Henry Eliot, John Person (Pason), Richard Mather Juniour, Martin Sanders, Crosby of Braintree (Joseph), Joseph Penniman, ..." (Mass. Archives 68:73, in Soldiers in King Philip's War, p. 83); John Payson and Samuel Payson rode with him. The troop joined the army at Dedham Plain, rode on 16 Dec to Pettaquamscut and brought back the news that Bull's garrison was destroyed, "On the 19th took part in the battle at the fort," raided Pomham's country on 27 Dec, and on 21 Jan met a party of Indians, "of whom two were captured and nine killed"; after the pursuit that followed, the army went back to Boston early in February. "Richard Mather 04 10 00" was credited under Prentice on 24 Mar 1675/6, the usual pay for the campaign (p. 82). In those last weeks his future wife's brother, Rev. John Wise, was chaplain with the Connecticut army under Major Treat in the same pursuit (Records of the Colony of Connecticut 2:399-400).

On 1 July 1680 he married Katherine Wise, daughter of Joseph Wise, the Roxbury butcher. They lived at first in Dorchester, where the births of Timothy (1681), Elizabeth (1682), Samuel (1683/4) and Joseph (1686) are recorded (source); in July 1686 he and "Katharine his wife" were still "of Dorchester." "In the year 1687 he bought a tract of land in Lyme of Hezekiah Usher of Boston. As Mr. Mather died the next year, he could not have done much in his new enterprise. He died on the fifty-third anniversary of the landing of his grandfather in America": 17 Aug 1688, at Lyme (source).

His uncle was Increase Mather, who wrote the war's first history, and his first cousin Cotton Mather. His daughter Elizabeth married Zachariah Sill of Lyme, son of Capt. Joseph Sill, who had commanded a foot company beside Capt. John Holbrook's in the spring of 1676 (Savage 4:97).

Research: Notable connections of Patricia Hatten (1940-2009): the paternal Hatten line.

Open questions

• "Richard Mather Juniour" on Prentice's list (Mass. Archives 68:73), with the troop's town returns (68:100): to read in the original.