Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/287

Rh placed with those of Hidalgo and Morelos in the cathedral of Mexico, and his name has been given to two towns and to districts in several states.

MATERNA, Amalie, German singer, b. in St. Georgen, Austria, 10 July, 1847. Her first appearance was made in the Thalia theatre, in Gratz, about 1864, and she afterward married Karl Friedrich, an actor, and was engaged with him in suburban theatres near Vienna, where she sang in operettas. In 1869 she appeared in the Imperial opera-house, Vienna, as Selika in &ldquo;L'Africaine&rdquo; with signal success, and in 1876 earned a world-wide reputation by her impersonation of Brunhilde in the Niebelungen trilogy at the Wagner festival in Beireuth. She sang at the Wagner concerts of England in 1877, and came to the United States in 1882 to sing in the New York music festival of that year. Since that time she has sung in Wagner's operas in this country for several seasons with great acceptability.

MATHER, Fred, pisciculturist, b. in Albany, N. Y., in August, 1833. In 1854 he became interested in the lead-mines of Potosi, Wis., and afterward hunted and trapped in the Bad Axe country in that state. Here he learned enough of the Chippewa language to become interpreter to the government survey in northern Minnesota. During the political troubles in Kansas he served under Gen. James Lane, and was one of Jennison's &ldquo;Jayhawkers.&rdquo; He enlisted in the 113th New York regiment in 1862, and became 1st lieutenant two years later. At the close of the civil war he took a clerkship in the live-stock yards near Albany. In 1868 he bought a farm at Honeoye Falls, N. Y., and began to hatch fish of various kinds. When the U. S. fish commission was formed in 1872 he was sent for by Prof. Spencer F. Baird to hatch shad for the Potomac river. In 1875 he established hatcheries at Lexington and Blacksburg for the state of Virginia. A year earlier he had hatched the first sea-bass and graylings. After several vain attempts to transport salmon-eggs to Europe, he devised a refrigerator-box, and in 1875 succeeded in carrying the eggs to Germany. He also, at the same time, invented a conical hatching apparatus, by which, through the admission of water at the bottom, shad and other eggs were hatched in bulk instead of in layers upon trays or floating boxes. In 1884 he hatched the adhesive eggs of the smelt, although all previous attempts had been failures. He has been sent abroad several times by the U. S. government in connection with fish-culture, and he has medals and testimonials from many scientific societies of Europe. In 1877 he became fishery editor of &ldquo;The Field&rdquo; in Chicago, and since 1880 he has held a like position with &ldquo;Forest and Stream&rdquo; in New York city. In 1882 he was sent by Prof. Baird to Roslyn, Long Island, to hatch salmon for the Hudson river. In 1883 he was appointed superintendent of the New York fish commission station at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. Here the hatching of lobsters, codfish, and other marine forms was begun. He has published &ldquo;Ichthyology of the Adirondacks&rdquo; (1885), which describes several fishes heretofore unknown.

MATHER, Frederic Gregory, journalist, b. in Cleveland, Ohio, 11 Aug., 1844. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1867, and studied law in Cleveland, but did not practise, having chosen commercial and literary pursuits. In 1874 he became managing editor of the &ldquo;Times&rdquo; at Binghamton, N. Y., and in 1875 editor-in-chief of the &ldquo;Republican&rdquo; in the same city, but resigned the place in 1879. He wrote editorials for the Albany &ldquo;Evening Journal&rdquo; in 1880, and then became the resident

Albany correspondent of several newspapers. He has frequently contributed to periodicals, chiefly on historical, economic, and scientific subjects.

MATHER, Moses, clergyman, b. in Lyme, Conn., 23 Feb., 1719; d. in Darien, Conn., 21 Sept., 1806. He was graduated at Yale in 1739, and ordained over the Congregational church in Darien in 1744, which post he held till his death. During the Revolution he was several times imprisoned as a patriot. Princeton gave him the degree of D. D. in 1791. He was noted as a controversialist. He published &ldquo;Infant Baptism Defended&rdquo; (1759), and &ldquo;Election Sermons&rdquo; (1781).

MATHER, Richard, clergyman, b. in Lowton, Lancashire, England, in 1596; d. in Dorchester, Mass., 22 April, 1669. He was the progenitor of the Mather family in New England. His father was Thomas Mather, and his grandfather was John Mather, of the chapelry of Lowton, in the parish of Winwick, Lancashire. In the early days of the 17th century, during the reign of James I., a band of Puritans cleared away the heavy forests at the south of the city of Liverpool, and settled what was known as Toxteth Park. They looked upon the burning of John Bradford, at Smithfield, as a martyrdom, and they erected a stone chapel in which they might hear the doctrines of the Reformation. The chapel is still in existence. It is plain and square, with no steeple or belfry of any description. The exterior is covered with ivy. Among the tablets upon the interior wall is one bearing this inscription: &ldquo;Near this walk rest the remains of several generations of an ancient family of yeomanry named Mather, who were settled in Toxteth Park as early as the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They were distinguished by many virtues and by strong religious feeling, and were among the fairest specimens of those who, in former times, were called Puritans.&rdquo; Richard Mather was called at a very early age to act as instructor to the youth of this church. While filling this post he resolved to prepare for the ministry, and to this end he entered Brasenose college, Oxford. In 1619 he was ordained by the bishop of Chester and was settled over the church in Toxteth, where he remained until 1635, when he removed to this country. This step was taken because he had been suspended twice for non-conformity, and because he foresaw the troubles under Charles I. and Archbishop Laud. He took the ship &ldquo;Bristol&rdquo; on 16 April and landed in Boston, in disguise, on 17 Aug. His manuscript journal for 1635 is among the collections of the Dorchester antiquarian and historical society. It was printed in Boston in 1850. In regard to the immigration of those days Daniel Neal wrote that he had a list of seventy-seven divines, ordained in the Church of England, that became pastors of churches in this country before 1640, and that Richard Mather was one of the number. On his arrival in Boston, Mr. Mather found the church of Dorchester deserted by its minister, who had become a colonist at Windsor, Conn., with a part of his flock. He was called to the vacant church and served it from 1636 till his death. His preaching was direct and without the use of quotations from the Latin. Thomas Hooker said of him: &ldquo;My brother Mather is a mighty man.&rdquo; In his time the religious discussion was not so much upon the doctrines as upon the forms of worship and the status of church government. In such discussions he took an active part, and answered for the ministers of the colony the thirty-two questions relating to church government that were propounded by the general court in 1639. He was a member of the synod of 1648, and drew