Reverend Samuel Parris was Salem minister. Nothing of real importance took place in the Village except for the occasional argument. In winter of 1691, however, problems of immense proportions began to take place within the minister’s own house. Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, the minister’s nine-year-old daughter and eleven-year-niece, began exhibiting wild and unusual behaviour. Shouting suddenly, going into apparent trances, attempting to run into the fireplace, and having terrible fits and convulsions, the girls quickly aroused the concern of the Mr. Parris and his neighbours.

Just what did afflict the girls, and how did it start? Apparently Tituba, the Parris’s slave, had been telling Betty, Abigail and other adolescent girls, stories of fortune telling, witchcraft, and other fascinating but forbidden subjects. These impressionable young people, though probably enjoying the forbidden nature of these stories, began harboring strong guilt feelings that eventually led to what some modem scholars call "mass clinical hysteria" in which, although they are not physically sick in the normal sense, the patients display unusual physical symptoms and see imaginary visions.

Abigail wasted no time in accusing both John and Elizabeth Proctor of Witchcraft. Is she could not have him – no one could.