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The settlement of Salem is established.

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A small group of people settle about 5 miles outside Salem, which will later become Salem Village.

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Salem Village separates from Salem Town. Salem Village remains an agrarian society, while Salem Town is more focused on trade.

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Tensions rise in the church as Salem Town still has legal control over Salem Village. They will not fully recognize Salem Village's minister, James Bayley, and will not pay him his salary.

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Bridget Bishop of Salem Town is accused of witchcraft, but Rev. John Hale testifies for her and the charges are dropped.

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Rev. George Burroughs served as minister of the Salem Village church. The church would not ordain him, and he left in a bitter salary fight, at one point being arrested for debt.

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Bridget Bishop is accused a second time of witchcraft, but is acquitted.

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Rev. Deodat Lawson leaves as Salem Village's minister. Like Rev. Bayley ten years earlier, Lawson was not fully paid nor ordained by Salem Town.

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Rev. Samuel Parris arrives in Salem Village as a candidate for the position of Salem Village minister. He is their first fully ordained minister.

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The Reverend Samuel Parris

Born in 1653, Samuel Parris initially pursued a career as a merchant and planter in both London and Barbados. Perhaps anticipating his later career in the ministry, or to elevate his status in business, Parris attended Harvard for a few years in the early 1670s. But when his father died, he left Massachusetts without having graduated and returned to Barbados to resume his mercantile activities. In 1680, he again headed for Boston to improve his prospects. Although some detractors have alleged that he was a failure as a businessman, according to Parris's biographer, he enjoyed "modest success."

But commerce proved unsatisfying, and Parris decided on a new career in the ministry. Since it was unusual to enter the ministry without a college degree, particularly as an ordained minister, it is possible that Parris completed his schooling, though there is no record of this. In 1688, Parris began negotiations with Salem Village for the opening vacated by Deodat Lawson, and the following year, he accepted the post. He permanently cut his business ties in Boston, settled into Salem Village's ministry house with his family, and was ordained.

The union of Parris and Salem Village appeared to begin smoothly, but within two years of his arrival, dissatisfaction with Parris was evident. His difficulties stemmed in part from disagreements over his contract, which never seems to have been formalized. One recorded agreement with Parris (of which he denied any knowledge!) provided him with the ministry house and lands only so long as he remained minister. However, some months later, another meeting of the village, perhaps attended by different people, granted Parris outright ownership of the house and lands. Combined with Parris's plans to refurbish the meeting house, commensurate with its new status as a full church, Parris's ministry signaled a church both more intrusive and more expensive than some villagers wished.

Parris also revealed traits that a number of Salem Villagers, including a few church members, found unwelcome. A serious, dedicated minister, he combined his evangelical enthusiasm to revitalize religion in Salem Village with psychological rigidity and theological conservatism. In contrast to Salem Town's church and most Puritan churches at the time, Parris continued to uphold traditional strict standards for church membership. The Salem Town church had become more inclusive in its membership, making it relatively easy to become a full member. It also accepted the "Half-Way Covenant," which brought into partial membership adults who had been baptized but had not made a public declaration of experiencing God's free grace to become full members. The children of these half-way members were then made eligible for baptism. Parris, however, rejected the Half-Way Covenant and offered baptism only to professed believers and their children. Most village church members were happy with Parris's orthodoxy, 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.

To read more about Salem Village's divisions in the early years of Parris's ministry, click Next.

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The Reverend Samuel Parris Born in 1653, Samuel Parris initially pursued a career as a merchant and planter in both London and Barbados. Perhaps anticipating his later career in the ministry, or to elevate his status in business, Parris attended Harvard for a few years in the early 1670s.

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Salem Village church grants Rev. Parris a full deed to the parsonage, apparently in violation of the congregation's own rules.

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In a battle, the French take Fort Loyal in Falmouth, Maine, and kill most of the residents, burning the town. Some of those fleeing go to Salem. Mercy Lewis, orphaned in one of the attacks on Falmouth joins the Putnams in Salem Village. One theory is that she saw her parents killed.

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The Battle of Falmouth (also known as the Battle of Fort Loyal) (May 16-20, 1690) involved Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière and Baron de St Castin leading troops as well as the Wabanaki Confederacy ( Mi'kmaq and Maliseet from Fort Meductic) in New Brunswick to capture and destroy Fort Loyal and the English settlement on the Falmouth neck (site of present-day Portland, Maine), then part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The commander of the fort was Captain Sylvanus Davis. After two days of siege, the settlement's fort, called Fort Loyal (sometimes spelled "Loyall"), surrendered. The community's buildings were burned, including the wooden stockade fort, and its people were either killed or taken prisoner. The fall of Fort Loyal (Casco) led to the near depopulation of Europeans in Maine. Native forces were then able to attack the New Hampshire frontier without reprisal.

The earliest garrison at Falmouth was Fort Loyal (1678) in what was then the center of town, the foot of India Street. During King William's War, on Major Benjamin Church's first expedition into Acadia, on September 21, 1689, he and 250 troops defended a group of English settlers trying to establish themselves at Falmouth, Maine (present-day Portland, Maine). Natives killed 21 of his men; however, he was successful and the natives retreated. Church then returned to Boston, leaving the small group of English settlers unprotected. Hertel was chosen by Governor Frontenac to lead an expedition in 1690 that successfully raided Salmon Falls on the Maine-New Hampshire border, and then moved on to destroy Fort Loyal on Falmouth Neck (site of present-day Portland, Maine).

In May 1690, four hundred to five hundred French and Indian troops under the command of Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière and Baron de St Castin attacked the settlement. Grossly outnumbered, the settlers held out for four days before surrendering. Eventually two hundred were murdered and left in a large heap a few paces from what is now the popular Benkay sushi restaurant. Davis was taken prisoner to Quebec. A relief expedition under command of Shadrach Walton came too late to save the people from the massacre.

When Church returned to the village later that summer, he buried the dead.

James Alexander was taken captive along with 100 other prisoners. He was taken back to the Maliseet headquarters on the Saint John River at Meductic, New Brunswick. "James Alexander, a Jersey man," was, with John Gyles, tortured at an Indian village on the Saint John River. Two families of Mi'kmaq people who had lost friends by some English fishermen, came these many miles to avenge themselves on the captives. They were reported to have yelled and danced around their victims; tossed and threw them; held them by the hair and beat them - sometimes with an axe - and did this all day, compelling them also to dance and sing, until at night they were thrown out exhausted. Alexander, after a second torture, ran to the woods, but hunger drove him back to his tormentors. His fate is unknown.

Captain Davis spent four months as a prisoner in Canada. Both Falmouth and Arrowsic remained uninhabited until 1714 and 1716 respectively.

The fort was replaced and named Fort Falmouth in 1742 leading up to King George's War.[citation needed ]

On 28 May 1690 there was an attack at Fox Point, New Hampshire.

Endnotes

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The Battle of Falmouth (also known as the Battle of Fort Loyal ) (May 16-20, 1690) involved Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière and Baron de St Castin leading troops as well as the Wabanaki Confederacy ( Mi'kmaq and Maliseet from Fort Meductic) in New Brunswick to capture and destroy Fort Loyal and the English settlement on the Falmouth neck (site of present-day Portland, Maine), then part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

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Rev. Samuel Parris asks the church to provide more firewood for his house, stating that the only wood he had was donated by Mr. Corwin.

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Representatives of Salem Village petition Salem Town to recognize the village's independence, or at least to tax Salem Village residents only for Salem Village expenses.

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In Salem Village, Elizabeth (Betty) Parris and Abigail Williams, ages 9 and 12, both living in the home of Betty's father Rev. Samuel Parris, begin exhibiting strange behavior, making strange noises, and complaining of headaches. Tituba, one of the family's enslaved Caribbeans, experiences visions of the devil and swarms of witches, according to her later testimony.

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Based on the accusations of Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, arrest warrants are issued in Salem Town for the first three accused witches, Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne

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1628
The settlement of Salem is established.
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1638
1638
A small group of people settle 