tone shifts into a sigh: "Of Cotton Mather, more is required to be said ... There is some ground for suspicion that he was instrumental in originating the fanaticism in Salem." Though Upham does not swerve to hit the Mathers, and his statement seems mild in comparison to those that had gone before, it garnered an agitated 67 page response from William Frederick Poole, a librarian at the Boston Athenaeum. WF Poole complains that "every school boy knows the story by heart" of Cotton Mather mounted on horseback at the execution of John Proctor and George Burroughs, as described by Calef. Poole cites various school textbooks: ("Calef, a citizen of Boston, exposed Mather's credulity, and greatly irritated the minister." — Lossing's Pictorial History of the United States, 1868, p. 106.) Poole also references poetry (Longfellow) and writes, "Calef's book, in our opinion, has a reputation much beyond its merits." "Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather" was Upham's book-length response to Poole (referring to him as "The Reviewer"). It was a devastating rebuttal and the consensus, at least at the time, seems to have been that Upham won the debate. (See below and notes in Burr. It may have hurt Poole's cause when he expressed a belief in the levitation of Margaret Rule. But note, the influence of WF Poole would return later, see 20th c. revision below.) This work by Upham is based on Robert Calef's book and draws from it, expanding some parts (see for instance, Upham textual treatment of "The Return of the Ministers"). Upham also closely inspects private correspondence and journals that didn't become available until after Calef's time, but corroborated Calef, including the diary of Samuel Sewall, the letters of Phips, and a letter from Cotton Mather to Stephen Sewall on September 20, 1692. Materials that were unavailable or unknown to Upham, but would seem to support his view, and the work of Calef, include: I. the record-book of the Cambridge Association, which begins in 1690 with a discussion of issues Parris is facing in Salem village and includes important entries on June 27 and Aug. 1, 1692; II. Cotton Mather's private letters to a distant uncle John Cotton (banished from Boston to Plymouth) on August 5 ("Our Good God is working of miracles. Five witches were lately executed, impudently demanding of God, a miraculous vindication of their innocency.") and on October 20, 1692. III. Cotton Mather