Early Life
Dave was the son of Ulysses and Lydia Mather (née Wright) of Connecticut. His father was a sea captain who was descended from the famous Mathers of New England who had included Richard Mather, Increase Mather, and Cotton Mather. Dave seems to have fancied himself a direct descendant of Cotton Mather, but this was in error. Cotton Mather had no male children live to adulthood. Accordingly, Americans born in that era with the surname Mather are most likely descended from Timothy Mather, a farmer, brother of Increase Mather and uncle to Cotton Mather
Dave was the first of three sons born to the Mathers. His brother, Josiah "Sy" Mather was born October 11, 1854. Another brother, George Conway Mather, was born in 1855 and died in 1856. By the time that Dave was 16, both of his parents had died, and Dave and his brother Josiah headed west, settling first in Dodge City, Kansas.
Ulysseus Mather abandoned his family following the death of his son and the loss of his ship. He died in 1864 at port in Shanghai after being stabbed by the ship's Chinese cook. Lydia Mather remarried, to a man named George H. Randle, sometime in the late 1850s. When she died in 1868, Dave and Sy ran away to sea. This lasted less than a year before the boys opted for a life on dry land and jumped ship in New Orleans.
Read more about this topic: Mysterious Dave Mather
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