Samuel Parris

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Samuel Parris (b. 1653, London, England) was the Puritan minister in the town of Salem Village (now Danvers, Massachusetts) during the Salem Witch Trials, as well as the father and uncle of two of the afflicted girls.

Samuel Parris was born in London, the son of a cloth merchant. When his father died in 1673 he left the majority of his estate, including interests in Ireland and Barbados, to his eldest son. Samuel recieved only a twenty acre plot of land in Barbados, hardly enough to cultivate successfully. Instead he arrived in Boston in the early 1680's.