Reverend Samuel Parris.
Samuel Parris was the Puritan minister in Salem Village, Massachusetts, during the Salem witch trials and the father of one of the afflicted girls, Elizabeth Parris, and the uncle of another — Abigail Williams.
Samuel was born in London, England, in 1653, the son of cloth merchant Thomas Parris, who also had interests in the island colony of Barbados. When he grew up, Samuel was sent to Massachusetts to study at Harvard. In 1673, while he was still in college, his father died, leaving the 20-year-old with a plantation in Barbados. After graduating, Parris moved to the island, where he leased out the family sugar plantation and settled in Bridgetown. There, he became a credit agent for other sugar planters.
In 1680, after a hurricane hit Barbados, much of his property was damaged. He then left the island, taking two slaves, Tituba and John Indian, with him. He then settled in Boston, where he again tried to establish himself as a merchant. He purchased a wharf and warehouse and attended Boston’s First Church, where he met Elizabeth Eldridge. The two soon married and had three children: Thomas, Elizabeth, and Susannah. His slaves, Tituba and John Indian, remained in his household. Dissatisfied with merchant life, Parris considered a change in vocation, and in 1686 he began substituting for absent ministers and speaking at informal church gatherings.
After the birth of their third child, the Reverend Parris began formal negotiations with Salem Village to become the village’s new minister. At this time, Salem Village was known to be contentious, described by residents of neighboring towns as quarrelsome. It had already had three ministers, all of whom departed after issues with the congregation. Though Parris knew of the village conflicts over the past several years, his Puritan belief that each person was responsible for monitoring his neighbor’s piety led him to believe conflict was inevitable.
On June 18, 1689, at a general meeting of all villagers, it was agreed to hire Samuel Parris at an annual salary of £66, and the villagers would provide firewood for both the church and parsonage. At a later meeting, the villagers also agreed to provide Parris and his heirs with the village parsonage, a barn, and two acres of land. Parris agreed, and he and his family immediately moved to Salem Village, settling into the parsonage and beginning his ministerial duties that same month. To the parsonage, Reverend Parris brought his wife, Elizabeth; his nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth; his 11-year-old niece, Abigail Williams; and his slaves, Tituba and John Indian.
On November 19, 1689, the Salem Village church charter was finally signed, and Reverend Samuel Parris became Salem Village’s first ordained minister. His ministry began smoothly, but as Parris revealed his beliefs and traits, several Salem Villagers, including a few church members, disliked what they saw. A severe and dedicated minister, he combined his evangelical enthusiasm to revitalize religion in Salem Village with psychological rigidity and theological conservatism.
While the Salem Towne Church and most Puritan churches of the time were relaxing their standards for church membership, Parris held to traditional, strict standards that required members to be baptized and to publicly declare that they had experienced God’s free grace to become full members. Most village church members liked Parris’s traditionalism, which elevated their status by sharply distinguishing them from non-church members. But a minority dissented and found allies among non-members, who constituted a large and influential part of the Salem Village community.
Salem Village Meeting House.
Suddenly, Parris found himself embroiled in contract disputes with the Salem Village Church council members. The council alleged that the contract, seemingly never formalized, gave Parris the parsonage and lands only as long as he remained minister. In contrast, Parris believed it granted him outright ownership of the house and lands. At the same time, Parris planned to refurbish the meeting house to match its new status as a full church. But to many, this signaled a more intrusive and expensive church than some villagers wished for.
By the fall of 1691, only two years after his ordination, Parris’s ritual orthodoxy, overbearing disposition, and disputed contract had once again split the village and church into factions. Church attendance fell, and village officials refused to provide firewood to warm the church or Parris’s house. Matters worsened when the village chose a new Committee of Five in October 1691, which announced it would not relinquish the ministry house and land to Parris or collect taxes for his salary, leaving villagers to pay by “voluntary contributions.” Parris then called on church members to file a formal complaint with the County Court against the committee for neglecting the church. The factional fighting also began in his weekly sermons as a battle between God and Satan.
Samuel Parris Home
That Winter, Samuel’s daughter, Elizabeth Parris, and her cousin, Abigail Williams, began experimenting with fortune-telling, mainly to determine their future social status and potential husbands. They quickly shared their game with other young girls in the area, even though fortune-telling was regarded as a demonic practice. By January 1692, nine-year-old Elizabeth seemed consumed by a secret preoccupation, forgetting errands and struggling to concentrate. She then began acting strangely, barking like a dog when her father rebuked her, screaming wildly when she heard the “Our Father” prayer, and once hurling a Bible across the room. After these episodes, she sobbed distractedly and spoke of being damned, perhaps because she practiced “fortune telling.”
The Reverend Samuel Parris believed prayer could cure her odd behavior, but his efforts were ineffective. In fact, her actions got worse. Soon, she contorted her body into odd postures, spouted foolish, ridiculous speeches, and generally had fits. The Reverend Parris consulted other ministers, but they could not explain her actions. But when he brought in the local doctor, William Griggs, he suggested that her malady must result from witchcraft. Parris then organized prayer meetings and days of fasting in an attempt to alleviate Elizabeth’s symptoms. But the frenzy just spread. Soon, Elizabeth’s cousin, Abigail Williams, was also having fits, followed by some of their friends, including Ann Putnam, Jr., and Mary Walcott. Since the sufferers of witchcraft were believed to be the victims of a crime, the community set out to find the perpetrators. On February 29, 1692, under intense adult questioning, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams named Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba as their tormentors.
Parris’ preaching had a significant hand in creating the divisions within the village that contributed to the accusations of 1692. During the crisis, he declared the church under siege by the Devil, who was assisted by “wicked & reprobate men.” Parris began to draw “battle lines” between those who supported him and those who didn’t, who were undoubtedly the very ones he had called “wicked & reprobate.” The accusations against the opposing factions of Salem Village began in earnest and soon spread to nearby towns, including Andover, Beverly, Topsfield, Wenham, and others.
When the trials began, Reverend Samuel Parris filed complaints, served as a witness, testified against many accused, and sometimes served as the record-keeper. By the end of May 1692, more than 150 “witches” had been jailed, and by September, 19 people had refused to confess and were hanged, and another had been pressed to death for refusing to make a plea. By October, however, cooler heads began to prevail, and the court disallowed “spectral evidence.” The affair wouldn’t end until May 1693, when the accused were finally released from jail.
Though the hysteria had finally ended, Salem Village was still divided, and many were even more dissatisfied with the Reverend Parris. However, in 1695, two years after the trials ended, Parris still had the majority of the town’s support. But over time, the families of those accused, especially those who had been executed, would push him out. Rebecca Nurse’s family and others directly accused Parris of providing names to the court, and many people had strong misgivings about his place in the trials. Some villagers charged him for his role in the trials, leading him to apologize for his error. Samuel’s wife died in 1696 at age 48 and is buried in Danvers Cemetery.
Despite the intense dislike of many Salem villagers, Parris stayed on until 1697, when he accepted another preaching position in Stow, Massachusetts. He later lived in Watertown and Concord, where he worked as a trader and licensed retailer. At some point, he married Dorothy Noyes a second time, and the couple had four children. He began preaching in Dunstable in 1708 and continued until 1712. From there, he moved to Sudbury, where he worked as a farmer and sometimes as a schoolteacher. He died in Sudbury on February 27, 1720.
The Reverend Joseph Green replaced Parris in 1697, a man who genuinely wanted to heal Salem and set the village on the long, uncertain road to recovery.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2026.
Also See:
Procedures, Courts & Aftermath
Timeline of the Witchcraft Hysteria
See Sources.