A case in point was the web that formed between the Mather and Cotton families. The founders of these two houses in America, John Cotton and Richard Mather, both married the same woman, Sarah Story. John Cotton's daughter Maria Cotton became the wife of Richard Mather's son Increase Mather. A child of that union was the eminent minister Cotton Mather. By these various connections, John Cotton was simultaneously Cotton Mather's natural grandfather on the mother's side, and his step-grandfather on his father's side. At the same time, Richard Mather was both Cotton Mather's paternal grandfather,
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