aged at nineteen years an important bit of local history has been discovered at salem in connection with a tombstone in tho the old charter street burying ground in the utter most corner of 0 this ground is ia a stone bearing this inscription mr air nathan mather died october yo ye 1088 1688 an aged person that had seen but nineteen M winters in this wor world the meaning of this peculiar inscription has long been a matter for conjecture among local historians in his american notebooks nathaniel hawthorne refers to it and says an aged man at nineteen years eaith baith the gravestone it affected me deeply when I 1 cleared away the grass from the half buried stone and read the name the mystery has been solved by tho the discovery in the essex esses institute of a book entitled the genealogy of the mather family by this book it appears that nathaniel mather was born july and was a brother of cotton mather and a son of increase mather at the age of twelve years he had thoroughly fitted for college and he was graduated from harvard at the age of sixteen at twelve he had read the old testament inI in hebrew lebrew and the new testament in greek and was able to converso converse familiarly in latin ho he was distinguished not only for his complete mastery of languages but for his attainments in mathematics philosophy history theology and rabbinical learning as well at the time of his graduation he delivered an oration in hebrew upon the state of learning among the jews boston journal