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Robert Calef (baptized 2 November 1648 – 13 April 1719) was a cloth merchant in colonial Boston. He was the author of More Wonders of the Invisible World, a book composed throughout the mid-1690s denouncing the recent Salem witch trials of 1692–1693 and particularly examining the influential role played by Cotton Mather.
Calef emigrated to New England sometime before 1688. His children born in Boston were baptized in Boston's South Church, pastored by Samuel Willard. Calef's name does not come up in the records of the witchcraft trials of 1692-3 and, according to his book, his interactions with the Mathers began in Boston in September 1693, with most of the writing of the book and compilation of trial records complete by 1697. From 1702-04, Calef was an overseer of the poor. In 1707 he was chosen an assessor, and in 1710 a tithingman, which he declined.SG Drake "Witchcraft Delusion" Vol. II, p. xii He retired to Roxbury, where he was a selectman. He died there on 13 April 1719.
Robert Calef, after exchanging letters with Cotton Mather and many other area ministers, published his book More Wonders of the Invisible World, with his title being a riff on Cotton Mather's own introduction to his account of M.Rule "yet more Wonders ..."Drake ed. Vol. II p. 21. Calef objected to witch-hunt that lead to "a Biggotted Zeal, stirring up a Blind and most Bloody rage, not against Enemies, or Irreligious Proffligate Persons, But (in Judgment of Charity, and to view) against as Vertuous and Religious as any they have left behind them in this Country, which have suffered as Evil doers with the utmost extent of rigour."Drake ed. Vol. II. p. 13-14 (Calef's Preface). Aside from the preface and postscript, Calef begins and ends with Mather's accounts in his own words. He finished his compilation in 1697, but added a postscript before final publication.
663, n82. [[File:Cotton Mather's anonymous Life of Phips.jpg|thumb|Cotton Mather's anonymous Life of Phips]]
In early 1701, the Mathers responded with Some Few Remarks upon a Scandalous Book, written in the plural with co-signers, but occasionally lapsing into first person. The opening lines suggest that Calef's book had been well received by the masses in New England: "...that Scandalous Book ... has made our worthy Pastors Obnoxious ... among an unguided multitude". "It was highly rejoicing to us when we heard that our Booksellers were so well acquainted with the Integrity of our Pastors, as that not one of them could admit of any of those Libels to be vended in their shops."Some Few Remarks, pg. 9.
Mather, unsurprisingly, refuses to directly address many particulars of Calef's book but, rather, accused Calef of being a follower of Satan, and uses select quotes from the Bible intended to put the merchant Calef in his place, including Exodus 22:28: "Thou Shalt Not Speak Evil of the Ruler of Thy People".Quoted in
Within a year of the arrival of Calef's book, and not long after the death of William Stoughton, Increase Mather lost the Presidency of Harvard, to be replaced by Samuel Willard, and neither he nor his son Cotton Mather were able to regain the position despite numerous tries."Diary of Samuel Sewall" Vol. I 1674-1700, Vol II 1700-1729 MHS Collections Vol. V-VI Fifth Series, Boston MA 1878.Sibley (1885), pp. 18-21.CM DI According to Eliot, writing in 1809, Increase Mather, publicly book burning in Harvard Yard.
Postscript. —Sir, I here send you the copy of a paper that lately came to my hands; which, though it contains no wonders, yet is remarkable, and runs thus:
An account of what an Indian told Capt. Hill at Saco Fort.
The Indian told him, that the French ministers were better than the English; for before the French came among them there were a great many witches among the Indians; but now there were none; and there were witches among the English ministers, as Burroughs, who was hang'd for it.
Were I disposed to make reflections upon it, I suppose you will judge the field large enough; but I forbear.
As above, R. C.
... observe the time of the publications ... I know Mr. Cotton Mather, in his late Folio, imputes the to the Indian powwows, sending their Spirits amongst them; but I attribute it to Richard Baxter book, and Cotton Mather, and Increase Mather, and the false principles, and frightful stories that filled the people's minds with great fears and dangerous notions."... "My author, for the greatest part, is Mr. Calef, a merchant in that plantation."''Francis Hutchinson An Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, Original printing, 1718 London, Public Domain, p 77
In 1768, historian Thomas Hutchinson (no relation to Francis Hutchinson but a close relative of the Mathers and born in Boston's north end) wrote extensively about the trials, and often relies on Calef's analysis and calls him a "fair relator." Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of Robert Calef's book in his library at Monticello. In 1796, less than ten years after the Constitutional Convention, Calef's book was re-printed. Writing in 1809, Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) secretary John Eliot includes Calef as an entry in his Biographical Dictionary: "Calef made himself famous by his book ... even the present generation read his book with mingled sentiments of pleasure and admiration."John Eliot, Biographical Dictionary, (Boston and Salem, 1809) p 95-6. Another edition of Calef's book was brought out in 1823. In his History of Harvard University (1840), Harvard President Josiah Quincy writes of his predecessor, "That both the Mathers had an efficient agency in producing and prolonging that excitement, there can be, at this day, no possible question."Quincy, History of Harvard University, 1840, p 62.
1867: CW Upham, a Salem minister, published an extensive two-volume history of the trials centered on Salem paying little mind to either Mather until near the end of his second volume (p 366) when his tone shifts into a sigh: "Of Cotton Mather, more is required to be said ... There is some ground for suspicion that he was instrumental in originating the fanaticism in Salem." Though Upham does not swerve to hit the Mathers, and his statement seems mild in comparison to those that had gone before, it garnered an agitated 67 page response from William Frederick Poole, a librarian at the Boston Athenaeum. WF Poole complains that "every school boy knows the story by heart" of Cotton Mather mounted on horseback at the execution of John Proctor and George Burroughs, as described by Calef. Poole cites various school textbooks: ("Calef, a citizen of Boston, exposed Mather's credulity, and greatly irritated the minister." — Lossing's Pictorial History of the United States, 1868, p. 106.) Poole also references poetry (Longfellow) and writes, "Calef's book, in our opinion, has a reputation much beyond its merits."WF Poole, Cotton Mather and Salem Witchcraft, (Cambridge, 1869) p. 5,43, 49. PD and a copy the author donated to Harvard can be found online here. [6] "Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather" was Upham's book-length response to Poole (referring to him as "The Reviewer"). It was a devastating rebuttal and the consensus, at least at the time, seems to have been that Upham won the debate. (See below and notes in Burr. It may have hurt Poole's cause when he expressed a belief in the levitation of Margaret Rule. But note, the influence of WF Poole would return later, see 20th c. revision below.) This work by Upham is based on Robert Calef's book and draws from it, expanding some parts (see for instance, Upham textual treatment of "The Return of the Ministers"). Upham also closely inspects private correspondence and journals that didn't become available until after Calef's time, but corroborated Calef, including the diary of Samuel Sewall, the letters of Phips, and a letter from Cotton Mather to Stephen Sewall on September 20, 1692.
Materials that were unavailable or unknown to Upham, but would seem to support his view, and the work of Calef, include:
1885: Harvard librarian JL Sibley took on the task of compiling biographies for Harvard graduates and in his entry on Cotton Mather (HU 1678), he presents a lengthy multi-page and even-handed summary of CM's debate with Calef. "The Mathers strove hard to put down Calef's book, and to crowd it into oblivion. ... But Calef's book is one of merit. Without it, our view of the proceedings of the Mathers and others in connection with the witchcraft delusion would have been very incomplete."JL Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University (Cambridge,1885) vol. III, p. 12-17. Available online along with volumes I and II. Note, Sibley left a financial endowment to support more volumes and these were brought out quickly in the 1930s by scholars who did not seem to concur with Sibley's view on Calef and the Mathers, see 20th c. revision below. This same year, GH Moore, superintendent of the Lenox Library, writes "no better authority can be found than Robert Calef's 'Matters of Fact' ... That Mr. Calef was one of the most useful men of his day and generation in Massachusetts is amply demonstrated by his book, which ... continues to this day the most valuable contemporary work on the Witchcraft Delusion. Its tone and temper contrast very creditably with those of his chief antagonist, Cotton Mather, whose fingers were grievously burned in attempting to handle Calef, whom he denounced, with unusual professional emphasis, as a 'Coale fetch'd from Hell.'"GH Moore, Final Notes on Witchcraft, (New York, 1885) p 21, note 1. PD and available online. In a paper delivered to the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) in 1888, GH Moore writes, "Calef's letter to Willard (September 20, 1695) is one of the rough diamonds of his marvellous book ..."GH Moore, Bibliographical Notes on Witchcraft in Massachusetts (Worcester, 1881) p. 8. PD and available online.
1891: Harvard English Professor Barrett Wendell writes, "Calef's temper was that of the rational eighteenth century. The Mathers belonged rather to the sixteenth — the age of passionate religious enthusiasm ... Wherefore such of posterity as have not loved his memory have inclined now and again to call Cotton by a name he would probably have been the first to use in their place — a very great liar." But, Wendell concludes, "... he meant to be honest."Barrett Wendell Cotton Mather, The Puritan Priest (New York, 1891) Public Domain p 105
Kittredge writes: "The record of New England in the matter of witchcraft is highly creditable, when considered as a whole and from the comparative point of view." In this essay, Kittredge is dismissive of Calef's lengthy book, saying "Calef came too late to be really significant to our discussion."George Lyman Kittredge "Notes on Witchcraft" 1907 from AAS as a PDF. See p 178, 212. This essay also comprises Chapter 18 of the book Kittredge had printed by Harvard University Press in 1929. Also see Kittredge's shift away from witchcraft as his primary subject and toward biographical details of Cotton Mather's later years: "Cotton Mather's Election into the Royal Society" 1912 Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts PDF. Despite not completing the final step to obtain membership, Kittredge argues that F.R.S. should be added to his title. Also see: Kittredge, "Cotton Mather's Scientific Communications to the Royal Society" 1916 AAS PDF. This statement is difficult to reconcile considering Calef's interactions began in September 1693, as noted by TJ Holmes, as well as Kittredge's praise for Francis Hutchinson, who relied on Calef (see year 1718, above). TJ Holmes went on to publish bibliographies on both Mathers often citing the work of Kittredge or Kittredge's younger mentee in the Harvard English department, Kenneth B. Murdock, whose father worked closely with Kittredge in running the Harvard press.Max Hall "Harvard University Press A History" 1986 Harvard University Press Cambridge MA p 43, p 61 TJ Holmes views seem to have eventually become more nuanced. In an essay from 1985, Harold Jantz writes "TJ Holmes at times deeply regretted having descended into this 'vast Mather bog' ... and he earnestly warned a very young man to stay clear of it."Harold Jantz "Fictions and Inventions in Early America" from Mythos and Aufklarung in der Americanishen Literature (Erlangen, 1985), pp 6-9, 16-19.
The reflections by Jantz about TJ Holmes followed the discovery that a typescript copy of a September 2, 1692 letter from Cotton Mather to Chief Justice William Stoughton was authentic, and the heretofore missing "holograph" had been located and placed in the archivesBurns Archives of Boston College holds the holograph and AAS holds the typescript. The September 2, 1692 letter strongly supports Robert Calef's view of Cotton Mather. Jantz had previously (in the same essay) dismissed this letter as a "nasty, psychopathological" forgery and in this view he seems to have perhaps been joined by other neo-credulous scholars of the mid 20th century, including K. Silverman, Chadwick Hansen (see below) and D. Levin.David Levin "Did the Mathers Disagree about the Salem Witchcraft Trials" PDF from AAS. See note 19. Jantz's essay, with his mistake frozen in time, could offer a clear window into the zeitgeist. Kenneth Silverman's biography of Cotton Mather, published in 1984, the year before this discovery, won Pulitzer and Bancroft awards.Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather (New York 1984)
Writing in 1953, Perry Miller quotes SE Morison as saying "Robert Calef tied a tin can to Cotton Mather which has rattled and banged through the pages of superficial and popular historians ... My account is not popular and I strive to make it not superficial", and if qualified to the terms of his thesis, "the right can was tied to the proper tail, and through the pages of this volume it shall rattle and bang", Miller posits.Perry Miller, The New England Mind: From Colony to Province (Harvard Press, Cambridge, 1953), pg. 204.
"I use the female pronoun here because in Western Civilization the overwhelming majority of witchcraft victims have been women, who are more subject to hysteria than men." Chadwick Hansen, 1972Chadwick Hansen's introduction to More Wonders, York Mail Print (1972) p.xv, note 4.
In 1969, Chadwick Hansen claimed Calef was guilty of libel and in 1972 expanded this to "the outrageous lie, 'the Big Lie' in Goebbels' phrase.'"Chadwick Hansen. "Witchcraft at Salem" (New York, 1969), pp 190-91. And the 172 introduction to Calef's book. Calef had been cleared of the charge of libel in 1693 when neither Mather showed up in court.Drake "Witchcraft Delusion" ii, Calef's brief account p 60, and CM refers to the "neglects of others to do me justice" (pg. 48). Hansen writes, "I realize that in calling Calef a liar I differ from virtually every other person who has written about him since his own time." Hansen seems to base his accusations on the slim but charged portion of Calef's book making up the accounts of September 13 and 19, 1693. These events launched the interaction between Calef and Mather, but Calef relied on eyewitnesses and was not present on either occasion, as both Mather and Calef agree.Drake ed. vol. II p 60-66. CM refers to "Your informers have reported ..." p. 63, "...your witnesses excepted ..." p. 64.
A key part of Chadwick Hansen's analysis appears to be based on his misunderstanding of the archaic or less commonly used word "bed-clothes" which Oxford English Dictionary defines as "sheets and blankets" with examples from period literature.Also see entries for both "bedcloathes" and the first definition of the word "breast" in Johnson's Dictionary (1755). PD and available online. Thus Hansen misunderstands the distinction Calef makes between "bed-clothes" and "clothes".Hansen writes: "It is enough to say in summary that Calef suggested that, in treating Margaret Rule, Mather had been catering to a fraudulent adolescent's sexual desires by rubbing her naked breast and belly and by encouraging others to do so, although in fact the girl had not been naked, and the rubbing was no more than the laying-on-of-hands which has been a successful folk remedy ..."
Hansen's introduction to a rare facsimile edition of Calef's book where Hansen calls Calef a liar more than a dozen times and compares him to Joseph Goebbels. Chadwick Hansen introduction to More Wonders York Mail Print (1972) pp. v, xi, and note 4.
Other 20th-century historians were also keen to focus on this and followed Hansen in his mistake, including David Levin, who in 1978, referred to "the girls bare breast"David Levin, Cotton Mather (Harvard Press, 1978), pg. 242 and, in 1985, writes, "Even if we reject Robert Calef's libelous claim that he saw both Mathers fumbling under the young woman's bedclothes in search of demons (and the pleasure of fondling her breast and belly) and even if we reject the tradition that President Increase Mather had Calef's book burned in Harvard College Yard, we should hesitate to portray Increase Mather as the voice of unqualified reason and charity."David Levin, “Did the Mathers Disagree about the Salem Witchcraft Trials?”, americanantiquarian.org, pp. 35-37. (PDF) Kenneth Silverman also echos Hansen's mistake, writing "Calef's account clearly implies that Rule was partly naked."Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather, pg. 132 Portions of Hansen's book rely on the trial records compiled by Calef in Part 5 of his book.
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