Samuel Parris

Life

Samuel Parris, son of Thomas Parris, was born in London, England to a family of modest financial success and religious nonconformity. Samuel emigrated to Boston in the early 1660s, where he attended Harvard University at his father's behest. When his father died in 1673, Samuel left Harvard to take up his inheritance in Barbados, where he maintained a sugar plantation.

In 1680, after a hurricane hit Barbados, damaging much of his property, Parris sold a little of his land and returned to Boston, where he brought his slaves Tituba and John and married Elizabeth Eldridge. Eldridge was noted by many as being incredibly beautiful, said to be one of the most beautiful women in Salem Village. Together they had three children, Thomas Parris, Elizabeth Parris, and Susannah Parris. Although the plantation supported his merchant ventures, Parris was dissatisfied with his lack of financial security and began to look to the ministry. In July 1689, he became minister of Salem Village (now Danvers), Massachusetts.

Salem Village was a contentious place to live and was known to be quarrelsome by neighbouring towns and villages. Its dispersed settlement pattern may have resulted in a lack of a sense of common purpose that may have united more orderly and arranged communities. Parris was the fourth minister appointed in a series of unsuccessful attempts to keep a permanent minister. James Bayley (1673–79) and George Burroughs (1680–83), each stayed only a few years, departing after the congregation failed to pay their full rates. Deodat Lawson (1684–88) left with less contention. Further tension was caused by Parris' delay in accepting the position and his inability to resolve his parishioners' disputes. There were disputes over Parris' compensation. In October 1691 the town decided to stop paying his wages. The issue was further antagonized by Parris' perceived arrogance when he purchased gold candlesticks for the meetinghouse and new vessels for the sacraments. These issues, and others that were more personal between the villagers, continued to grow unabated.

The events which led to the Salem witch trials began when Parris' daughter Betty and her cousin, Abigail Williams, accused Parris' slave Tituba of witchcraft. Parris beat Tituba until she confessed herself a witch, and John Indian, her husband, began accusing others. The delusion spread, many were apprehended, most of whom were imprisoned. During the 16-month duration of the Salem witch trials phenomenon, 19 persons were hanged, and one, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. As Parris had been an active prosecutor in the witchcraft cases, in 1693 his parish brought charges against Parris for his part in the trials. Parris apologized in his essay Meditions for Peace, which he presented in November 1694. Increase Mather led a church council which then vindicated him.

Parris was then involved in a dispute with his congregation over parsonage land he had seized to compensate himself for salary he was owed. The dispute found its way to an Ipswich court, which, in 1697, ordered his salary to be paid and the land to be returned. By 1696, however, he had found his situation untenable. He resigned that year and left Salem. Records in the Suffolk Deeds indicate it likely he returned to business in Boston in 1697.

His wife Elizabeth died in 1696. In 1699 he remarried, to Dorothy Noyes, in Sudbury. He preached two or three years at Stow. He moved to Concord (1704/05). He also preached six months in Dunstable in 1711. He died on February 27, 1720, in Sudbury, where he spent his last years.

Fiction

Parris features in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, set against the backdrop of the witch trials. In the play, his daughter Elizabeth Parris is the first to become ill because of supposed and she is accused of witchcraft. In the 1957 and 1996 film adaptations of Miller's play, he was portrayed by Jean Debucourt and Bruce Davison, respectively.

Parris is also a character in Tituba of Salem Village by Ann Petry, another work of fiction relating to the witch trials.

In the novel Supernatural: One Year Gone, Parris is portrayed as having been manipulated by the real witches into starting the trials and also manipulated the girls to accuse his enemies and rivals to get rid of them. At the end of the novel, after the truth is revealed, he swears to put an end to the trials and release the innocent women.