Hang the Witches Now chronicles the trial of a woman for witchcraft in Salem in 1692, and the response of ministers to the suspected consequences from acts of witchcraft in Boston in 1688. Both reports were written and published by Rev. Cotton Mather, one of the leading ministers in New England in the late 17th century, and grandson of John Cotton and Richard Mather, two of the principal Puritan ministers at the founding of the Puritan colonies.]