Katherine Holt

First wife of Rev. Richard Mather, married 29 Sept 1624, daughter of Edmund Hoult, Esq., of Bury in Lancashire; after the wedding Richard “bought him a house at Much Woolton 3 miles from Toxteth” (source). In the spring of 1635 she and their four boys, Samuel, Timothy, Nathaniel and Joseph, went with him from Warrington to Bristol and sailed in the James, which reached Boston on 17 Aug 1635 (source). At Boston “He and his wife joined a church there” before they settled at Dorchester. Two more sons were born there: Eleazar, recorded as “the son of Richard Mather & Katherine his wife” (source), and Increase, in 1639. Four of her six sons became ministers: Samuel and Nathaniel in Ireland and England, Eleazar at Northampton and Increase at the Second Church in Boston; Timothy farmed at Dorchester.

She died in 1655. In his will Richard charged their sons to remember that “their Father which begat them, and their Mother which bare them, with all the Prayers they haue made, and teares they haue shed for them,” would witness against them if they fell away, and that “their deare Mother, now with God,” would rejoice with him if they did not (source).

Research: research/hatten/Hatten_Philbrick_Marvin.md.