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| {{short description|Accuser in the Salem witch trials}} | |||
| {{ |
{{other uses|Abigail Williams (disambiguation)}} | ||
| {{Refimprove|date=May 2008}} | |||
| {{more citations needed|date=December 2021}} | |||
| '''Abigail Williams''' (July 12, 1680 – UNKNOWN) was one of the initial accusers in the ] of 1692, which led to the arrest and imprisonment of over 150 innocent people. | |||
| {{Infobox person | |||
| ⚫ | | name = Abigail Williams | ||
| | birth_date = c. 1681 | |||
| | death_date = Unknown<ref name=SWM>{{Cite web|url=https://salemwitchmuseum.com/2012/01/16/what-happened-to-abigail-williams/|title=What Happened to Abigail Williams?|date=January 16, 2012|website=Salem Witch Museum|access-date=October 16, 2021|archive-date=August 12, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200812142346/https://salemwitchmuseum.com/2012/01/16/what-happened-to-abigail-williams/|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
| | death_place = | |||
| | known_for = First accuser in the ] | |||
| | relatives = {{plainlist| | |||
| * ] (uncle) | |||
| * ] (cousin) | |||
| ⚫ | }} | ||
| }} | |||
| '''Abigail Williams''' (born c. 1681, date of death unknown)<ref>Rosenthal et al. ''Records of the Salem Witch-hunt''(2014) p.963. The contemporary narrative attributed to Deodat Lawson identifies her as Parris "kins-woman" and "about 12 years" old. (GL Burr, Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases (1914), . Mary Beth Norton writes, "Despite enormous efforts by many people... it has proved impossible to identify Abigail Williams or her precise relationship to Samuel Parris." (''In the Devil's Snare'' (2002) p.333 fn 11.)</ref> was an 11- or 12-year-old girl who, along with nine-year-old ], was among the first of the children to falsely accuse their neighbors of ] in 1692; these accusations eventually led to the ]. | |||
| <s></s> | |||
| ⚫ | ==Salem |
||
| Abigail was born on July 12,1680 | |||
| . She and her yOU SCUK!! cousin ] were the two first accusers in the Salem Witch trials of 1692. Williams was 11 (raised to 17 in ''The Crucible'') years old at the time and she was living with her uncle ] in Salem. According to Rev. Deodat Lawson, an eyewitness, she and Betty began to have fits in which they ran around rooms flailing their arms, ducking under chairs and trying to climb up the chimney. | |||
| ⚫ | ==Salem Trials== | ||
| This issue, however, still troubled the villagers of ]. The local minister, Samuel Parris, decided to call in a doctor to determine whether or not these afflictions were medical. The physician, ], had difficulties understanding the actions of the two young girls. Griggs believed it was not a medical issue, rather, he suggested it must be witchcraft. One of Parris’ slaves, ], was then asked to bake a ''witch cake''— rye mixed with the afflicted girls’ urine— and feed the mixture to a dog. The theory was that if Abigail and Betty were bewitched, the dog would exhibit similar symptoms and prove that witchcraft was indeed present and being practiced. <ref>Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, ''Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974. Print. (pp. 2-3).</ref> Another reason may have been food poisoning: the girls may have eaten a "Witch's Stew" as part of their games that may have contained inedible or uncooked ingredients. In 1976, ]<ref> - ''Science'', vol. 192, April 1976</ref> put forward the theory that these strange symptoms may have been caused by ], the ingestion of fungus-infected rye. | |||
| In early 1692, Abigail Williams was living with her relative, Betty Parris's father, the village pastor ], along with his two slaves ] and ]. | |||
| Tituba was part of a group of three women—with ] and ]—who were the first to be arrested, on February 29, 1692, under the accusation that their specters (ghosts) were afflicting the young girls in Parris' household. The three women were questioned separately but were aware of each other and, in a classic ], they were turned against each other. Sarah Good was the first interrogated and held to her innocence. ] directed all "the children ... to look upon her and see if this were the person that hurt them ... and they all did look upon her" and claimed her specter tormented them. "Sarah Good ... why do you thus torment these poor children?" Hathorne asked. "What do I know, you bring others here and now you charge me with it," Sarah Good responded. Next Hathorne interrogated Sarah Osbourne, who claimed not to know Sarah Good or her full name. But Hathorne told her, "Sarah Good said that it was you that hurt the children." According to the transcript, this distorts what Sarah Good had said, as she had only vaguely referred to the others without naming them, in a way that was only intended to deflect blame from herself.<ref>Rosenthal ''Records'' p. 127.</ref> Tituba was interrogated last and was the only of the three women to offer a full and elaborate confession against herself and pointing the finger of blame at the other two women: "Sarah Good and Osbourne would have me hurt the children."<ref>Rosenthal ''Records'' p. 128.</ref><ref name=salemuva>{{cite web|last=Yost|first=Melissa|title=Abigail Williams|url=http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/people?group.num=all&mbio.num=mb33|work=Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project|publisher=University of Virginia|access-date=March 16, 2014|location=Charlottesville, Virginia|year=2002}}</ref> According to an investigation by ] that began soon after the trials, Tituba later recanted her confession as forced and claimed abuse from the slaveowner Parris: | |||
| Because of Abigail and Betty's claims to be possessed, false accusations would soon be made, causing 20 unnecessary deaths . On February 29th, 1692, three women were arrested for suspicion of witchcraft: ], ] and Tituba herself. <ref>Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, ''Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974. Print. (p. 3).</ref> They were all found guilty, but the only one to confess was Tituba. Since the other two women did not confess, Good was hanged, and Osborne died in prison. Tituba was luckily released out of jail a year later, when an unknown person paid her fees for release. <ref>Games, Alison. ''Witchcraft in Early North America''. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2010. Print. (p. 176).</ref> Nonetheless, Abigail and Betty’s trend of accusing innocents rapidly spread throughout Salem and nearby villages (especially ]), leading to the death of several innocent people. <ref>Hall, David. ''Witch Hunting in Seventeenth Century New England''. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999. Print. (pp. 280-281).</ref> Two dogs were also hanged, and one man (Giles Corey) was pressed with large stones until he died. Some significant people who were executed include: ], ], ], and ]. | |||
| <blockquote><p>"The account she since gives of it is that her master did beat her and otherwise abuse her, to make her confess and accuse, such as he called her 'sister-witches' and that whatever she said by way of confessing or accusing others, was the effect of such usage."<ref>Robert Calef, ''More Wonders of the Invisible World'' (1700) p. 91. Also reprinted in GL Burr .</ref></p></blockquote> | |||
| As the witch trials were coming to an end, Abigail ran away from Salem. It is not certain what happened to her, but rumor has it that she fled to a city somewhere along the east coast and resorted to prostitution for survival. One reference stated that she "apparently died before the end of 1697, if not sooner, no older than seventeen. "<ref>Roach, Marilynne K. 2002. ''The Salem Witch Trials: a Day-to-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege''. Cooper Square Press. Page 518.</ref> | |||
| Further accusations against many others emerged from the Parris household (and others) and eventually led to the imprisonment of hundreds and the deaths of more than 20 in 1692. Sarah Osborne died in prison in May and Sarah Good was executed on July 19 along with four other women. Members of Parris household all managed to survive the entire episode including Tituba, who was released from jail a year later, when the slaveowner Parris paid her prison fees and sold her.<ref>{{cite book|first=Alison|last=Games|title=Witchcraft in Early North America|url=https://archive.org/details/witchcraftearlyn00game|url-access=limited|publisher=]|location=Lanham, Maryland|date=2010|isbn=978-1442203570|page=}}</ref> | |||
| ==Appearances in fiction== | |||
| ] | |||
| In Arthur Miller's play '']'', Abigail is a girl of seventeen, and the main ]. At the beginning of the play, it is gradually revealed that she had been dancing in the woods with the girls of Salem and performing voodoo rituals with her uncle's slave, Tituba, all the girls making wishes for men in the town to marry them. When rumors began to circulate that the girls were performing witchcraft, Abigail and Betty Parris began to name people as having been in league with the devil, which was the most common way a "witch" was identified, to save themselves. Later, the girls of Salem became witnesses in the court trying the "witches". An added plot is that Abigail had previously worked as a maid at the Proctor household and had an affair with John Proctor, and Abigail accuses Goody Proctor, John's wife, of being a witch in order to get to him. In the ] and ] film adaptations of the play, Abigail was portrayed by ] and ], respectively. | |||
| == Later life == | |||
| Abigail is also in the 2010 film '']'' as a minor antagonist. Horvath, the film's main antagonist, releases her from a magical prison called "The Grimhold" and uses her to kidnap the love interest of the main protagonist Dave. After the kidnapping is complete Horvath absorbs Abigail's powers and steals her pentagram amulet which channels her power. By doing so Horvath becomes more powerful and is finally able to free his master, ]. | |||
| After the Salem witch trials, Williams disappeared from records circa 1696.<ref>{{cite book |last=Baker |first=Emerson W. |title=A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience |date=2015 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0190627805 |location=Oxford, England |page=232 |quote=The possible onset of his wife's illness in the winter or spring of 1696 (she died in July) may have influenced Parris. Furthermore, his niece, the afflicted girl Abigail Williams, simply disappears from the records at about this time, and some believe that her death may have had an effect.}}</ref> Her fate is unknown.<ref name=SWM/> | |||
| ==Legacy== | |||
| Arthur Miller's play, 'The Crucible', also gave Arizona-based ] band, ] the inspiration for their name.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} | |||
| ===''The Crucible''=== | |||
| In ]'s 1953 play, '']'', a fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials, Abigail Williams is the name of a character whose age in the play is raised a full five or six years, to age 17, and she is motivated by a desire to be in a relationship with ], a married farmer with whom she had previously had an affair. In the historical record, there is no evidence of John Proctor and Abigail Williams ever meeting before the trials had started. She was portrayed by ] in the ]. | |||
| === Other popular culture === | |||
| In ]'s 1828 novel '']'', Abigail Williams appears as the character Bridget Pope.<ref>{{cite thesis | last = Richards | first = Irving T. | date = 1933 | title = The Life and Works of John Neal | degree = PhD | publisher = ] | location = Cambridge, Massachusetts | url = http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990038995990203941/catalog | oclc = 7588473 | page = 697n2}}</ref> Neal links the origin of the witch hysteria to her sexual development, and her bewitched behavior stems from sexual frustration that is calmed too late when she is reunited with her love interest, Robert Eveleth, after the trials have already begun.<ref>{{cite book | last = Fleischmann | first = Fritz | title = A Right View of the Subject: Feminism in the Works of Charles Brockden Brown and John Neal | publisher = Verlag Palm & Enke Erlangen | location = Erlangen, Germany | year = 1983 | isbn = 978-3-7896-0147-7 | pages = 301–311}}</ref> | |||
| ] is an American ] band formed in 2004. | |||
| Abigail appears in the 2010 film '']'' as a minor antagonist. In the film, she was confirmed to be a witch who had both framed and set up others to take the fall for her witchcraft to divert attention from herself, which resulted in the Salem Witch Trials. Her actions and crimes against humanity, coupled with her conspiracy with Horvath to release Morgana, catch the attention of Balthazar Blake, who seals her into the Grimhold so she can do no more harm. She is later released by Horvath to kidnap the main protagonist Dave's love interest, Becky Barnes, only for the former Merlinean to fatally drain her of her magic once she completes the deed. | |||
| The 2013 play, ''Wonders of the Invisible World'' (originally titled ''A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World'') by ] tells the fictional story of Abigail William's return to New England ten years after the witch trials.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Jackson|first1=Debbie Minter|date=9 July 2013|title=A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World|work=dctheatrescene.com|url=https://dctheatrescene.com/2013/07/09/a-discourse-on-the-wonders-of-the-invisible-world/|access-date=22 November 2020}}</ref> | |||
| Abigail is revealed as the antagonist of the 2014 video game '']''. In the story, flashbacks reveal that she was hanged for her part in the witch trials. Over the centuries, she has existed as a ghost, using her supernatural powers to kill those she believes are witches. In the game's climax, she is seized by demons and dragged to Hell. | |||
| '']'', a 2015 online free-to-play ] ], has a character under the "Foreigner" class based on both Abigail Williams and ]. She plays a central role in the plot of the last Pseudo-Singularity chapter, Salem, which takes place during an alternate version of the Salem witch trials. | |||
| The 2020 video game ] includes a spin-off of Abigail's history and the Salem witch trials as one of the three timelines.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Hardy|first=Geena|date=2021-01-09|title=The Frustrating Story of 'Little Hope'|url=https://superjumpmagazine.com/the-frustrating-story-of-little-hope-ab9ab874af59|access-date=2021-07-18|website=Medium|language=en|archive-date=2021-07-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210718220642/https://superjumpmagazine.com/the-frustrating-story-of-little-hope-ab9ab874af59|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Frayna|first=Marion|date=2020-04-14|title=The Dark Pictures: Little Hope New Trailer Depicts The Salem Witch Trials Like Never Before|url=https://geekculture.co/the-dark-pictures-little-hope-new-trailer-depicts-the-salem-witch-trials-like-never-before/|access-date=2021-07-18|website=Geek Culture|language=en-US}}</ref> | |||
| Abigail is the central character in the play ''Abigail/1702: A Twice Told Tale'', by ]. It premiered at the South Camden Theater Company, Waterfront South Theatre, in Camden, New Jersey, in February 2020.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Abigail/1702 A Twice Told Tale — A Regional Premiere |url=https://theatrephiladelphia.org/whats-on-stage/abigail1702-a-twice-told-tale-a-regional-premiere |access-date=2024-02-02 |website=theatrephiladelphia.org |language=en}}</ref> | |||
| ===Convulsive ergotism=== | |||
| In 1976, ]<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Caporael|first=L.|date=1976-04-02|title=Ergotism: the satan loosed in Salem?|url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.769159|journal=Science|language=en|volume=192|issue=4234|pages=21–26|doi=10.1126/science.769159|pmid=769159 |bibcode=1976Sci...192...21C |issn=0036-8075}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=Z3NnaXMuazEyLnZhLnVzfG1yLWRvbmFodWUtYmlvcHN5Y2hvbG9neXxneDozMzMwMDgxNTMyNTQzNjM3|title=Ergotism - The Satan Loosed in Salem - Caporael 1976.pdf|website=docs.google.com}}</ref> put forward the hypothesis that ] may have been the source of accusations of ] that spurred the ]. Caporael argued that many of its convulsive symptoms were all symptoms reported in the Salem witchcraft records. This theory has been refuted by both toxicologists and historians of the Salem witch trials, in part because of the difference in the ages of the core group of accusers, which would have been younger, per prior ergotism epidemics, and would have affected males and females roughly equally. The ergotism theory is critiqued for failing to explain the differences in affliction rates between males and females and that no records suggest the allegedly affected experienced all symptoms to ergotism or had long-term health effects. Additionally, most historical outbreaks of ergotism would affect entire families or communities who shared a similar diet.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Spanos|first1=N. P.|last2=Gottlieb|first2=J.|date=1976-12-24|title=Ergotism and the Salem Village witch trials|url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.795029|journal=Science|language=en|volume=194|issue=4272|pages=1390–1394|doi=10.1126/science.795029|issn=0036-8075|pmid=795029|bibcode=1976Sci...194.1390S }}</ref> At the severity of supposed symptoms experienced by accusers, the levels of ergot would have been high enough to cause symptoms in adults in the community.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2579/were-the-witches-of-salem-a-result-of-poisoning-with-ergot-fungus|title=Were the witches of Salem a result of poisoning with ergot fungus?|access-date=June 18, 2015|date=January 14, 2005}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=February 2021}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Woolf |first1=Alan |title=Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials. |journal=Journal of Toxicology: Clinical Toxicology |date=2000 |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=457–460 |doi=10.1081/CLT-100100958 |pmid=10930065 |s2cid=10469595 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1081/clt-100100958 |access-date=25 April 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Forletta |first1=Briana |title=The Salem Witch Trials |url=http://wludh.ca/dh100/2016/T4/G5/M1/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Salem-Witch-Trials-Documentation.pdf |website=Wilfrid Laurier University Department of History |publisher=Wilfrid Laurier University |access-date=25 April 2021}}</ref> | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| *] | |||
| ==References== | ==References== | ||
| {{reflist}} | {{reflist|2}} | ||
| {{Salem}} | {{Salem}} | ||
| {{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see ]. --> | |||
| ⚫ | | |
||
| | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | |||
| | SHORT DESCRIPTION = | |||
| | DATE OF BIRTH = 1680 | |||
| | PLACE OF BIRTH = | |||
| | DATE OF DEATH = | |||
| | PLACE OF DEATH = | |||
| ⚫ | }} | ||
| {{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Abigail}} | {{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Abigail}} | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
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Latest revision as of 22:14, 8 January 2025
Accuser in the Salem witch trials For other uses, see Abigail Williams (disambiguation). | This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Abigail Williams" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Abigail Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1681 |
| Died | Unknown |
| Known for | First accuser in the Salem witch trials |
| Relatives |
|
Abigail Williams (born c. 1681, date of death unknown) was an 11- or 12-year-old girl who, along with nine-year-old Betty Parris, was among the first of the children to falsely accuse their neighbors of witchcraft in 1692; these accusations eventually led to the Salem witch trials.
Salem Trials
In early 1692, Abigail Williams was living with her relative, Betty Parris's father, the village pastor Samuel Parris, along with his two slaves Tituba and John Indian.
Tituba was part of a group of three women—with Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne—who were the first to be arrested, on February 29, 1692, under the accusation that their specters (ghosts) were afflicting the young girls in Parris' household. The three women were questioned separately but were aware of each other and, in a classic prisoner's dilemma, they were turned against each other. Sarah Good was the first interrogated and held to her innocence. Judge John Hathorne directed all "the children ... to look upon her and see if this were the person that hurt them ... and they all did look upon her" and claimed her specter tormented them. "Sarah Good ... why do you thus torment these poor children?" Hathorne asked. "What do I know, you bring others here and now you charge me with it," Sarah Good responded. Next Hathorne interrogated Sarah Osbourne, who claimed not to know Sarah Good or her full name. But Hathorne told her, "Sarah Good said that it was you that hurt the children." According to the transcript, this distorts what Sarah Good had said, as she had only vaguely referred to the others without naming them, in a way that was only intended to deflect blame from herself. Tituba was interrogated last and was the only of the three women to offer a full and elaborate confession against herself and pointing the finger of blame at the other two women: "Sarah Good and Osbourne would have me hurt the children." According to an investigation by Robert Calef that began soon after the trials, Tituba later recanted her confession as forced and claimed abuse from the slaveowner Parris:
"The account she since gives of it is that her master did beat her and otherwise abuse her, to make her confess and accuse, such as he called her 'sister-witches' and that whatever she said by way of confessing or accusing others, was the effect of such usage."
Further accusations against many others emerged from the Parris household (and others) and eventually led to the imprisonment of hundreds and the deaths of more than 20 in 1692. Sarah Osborne died in prison in May and Sarah Good was executed on July 19 along with four other women. Members of Parris household all managed to survive the entire episode including Tituba, who was released from jail a year later, when the slaveowner Parris paid her prison fees and sold her.
Later life
After the Salem witch trials, Williams disappeared from records circa 1696. Her fate is unknown.
Legacy
The Crucible
In Arthur Miller's 1953 play, The Crucible, a fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials, Abigail Williams is the name of a character whose age in the play is raised a full five or six years, to age 17, and she is motivated by a desire to be in a relationship with John Proctor, a married farmer with whom she had previously had an affair. In the historical record, there is no evidence of John Proctor and Abigail Williams ever meeting before the trials had started. She was portrayed by Winona Ryder in the 1996 film adaptation of the play.
Other popular culture
In John Neal's 1828 novel Rachel Dyer, Abigail Williams appears as the character Bridget Pope. Neal links the origin of the witch hysteria to her sexual development, and her bewitched behavior stems from sexual frustration that is calmed too late when she is reunited with her love interest, Robert Eveleth, after the trials have already begun.
Abigail Williams is an American black metal band formed in 2004.
Abigail appears in the 2010 film The Sorcerer's Apprentice as a minor antagonist. In the film, she was confirmed to be a witch who had both framed and set up others to take the fall for her witchcraft to divert attention from herself, which resulted in the Salem Witch Trials. Her actions and crimes against humanity, coupled with her conspiracy with Horvath to release Morgana, catch the attention of Balthazar Blake, who seals her into the Grimhold so she can do no more harm. She is later released by Horvath to kidnap the main protagonist Dave's love interest, Becky Barnes, only for the former Merlinean to fatally drain her of her magic once she completes the deed.
The 2013 play, Wonders of the Invisible World (originally titled A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World) by Liz Duffy Adams tells the fictional story of Abigail William's return to New England ten years after the witch trials.
Abigail is revealed as the antagonist of the 2014 video game Murdered: Soul Suspect. In the story, flashbacks reveal that she was hanged for her part in the witch trials. Over the centuries, she has existed as a ghost, using her supernatural powers to kill those she believes are witches. In the game's climax, she is seized by demons and dragged to Hell.
Fate/Grand Order, a 2015 online free-to-play role-playing mobile game, has a character under the "Foreigner" class based on both Abigail Williams and Yog-Sothoth. She plays a central role in the plot of the last Pseudo-Singularity chapter, Salem, which takes place during an alternate version of the Salem witch trials.
The 2020 video game Little Hope includes a spin-off of Abigail's history and the Salem witch trials as one of the three timelines.
Abigail is the central character in the play Abigail/1702: A Twice Told Tale, by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. It premiered at the South Camden Theater Company, Waterfront South Theatre, in Camden, New Jersey, in February 2020.
Convulsive ergotism
In 1976, Linnda R. Caporael put forward the hypothesis that ergot-tainted rye may have been the source of accusations of bewitchment that spurred the Salem witch trials. Caporael argued that many of its convulsive symptoms were all symptoms reported in the Salem witchcraft records. This theory has been refuted by both toxicologists and historians of the Salem witch trials, in part because of the difference in the ages of the core group of accusers, which would have been younger, per prior ergotism epidemics, and would have affected males and females roughly equally. The ergotism theory is critiqued for failing to explain the differences in affliction rates between males and females and that no records suggest the allegedly affected experienced all symptoms to ergotism or had long-term health effects. Additionally, most historical outbreaks of ergotism would affect entire families or communities who shared a similar diet. At the severity of supposed symptoms experienced by accusers, the levels of ergot would have been high enough to cause symptoms in adults in the community.
See also
References
- ^ "What Happened to Abigail Williams?". Salem Witch Museum. January 16, 2012. Archived from the original on August 12, 2020. Retrieved October 16, 2021.
- Rosenthal et al. Records of the Salem Witch-hunt(2014) p.963. The contemporary narrative attributed to Deodat Lawson identifies her as Parris "kins-woman" and "about 12 years" old. (GL Burr, Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases (1914), p. 153. Mary Beth Norton writes, "Despite enormous efforts by many people... it has proved impossible to identify Abigail Williams or her precise relationship to Samuel Parris." (In the Devil's Snare (2002) p.333 fn 11.)
- Rosenthal Records p. 127.
- Rosenthal Records p. 128.
- Yost, Melissa (2002). "Abigail Williams". Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia. Retrieved March 16, 2014.
- Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World (1700) p. 91. Also reprinted in GL Burr p. 343.
- Games, Alison (2010). Witchcraft in Early North America. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 176. ISBN 978-1442203570.
- Baker, Emerson W. (2015). A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0190627805.
The possible onset of his wife's illness in the winter or spring of 1696 (she died in July) may have influenced Parris. Furthermore, his niece, the afflicted girl Abigail Williams, simply disappears from the records at about this time, and some believe that her death may have had an effect.
- Richards, Irving T. (1933). The Life and Works of John Neal (PhD thesis). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University. p. 697n2. OCLC 7588473.
- Fleischmann, Fritz (1983). A Right View of the Subject: Feminism in the Works of Charles Brockden Brown and John Neal. Erlangen, Germany: Verlag Palm & Enke Erlangen. pp. 301–311. ISBN 978-3-7896-0147-7.
- Jackson, Debbie Minter (9 July 2013). "A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World". dctheatrescene.com. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
- Hardy, Geena (2021-01-09). "The Frustrating Story of 'Little Hope'". Medium. Archived from the original on 2021-07-18. Retrieved 2021-07-18.
- Frayna, Marion (2020-04-14). "The Dark Pictures: Little Hope New Trailer Depicts The Salem Witch Trials Like Never Before". Geek Culture. Retrieved 2021-07-18.
- "Abigail/1702 A Twice Told Tale — A Regional Premiere". theatrephiladelphia.org. Retrieved 2024-02-02.
- Caporael, L. (1976-04-02). "Ergotism: the satan loosed in Salem?". Science. 192 (4234): 21–26. Bibcode:1976Sci...192...21C. doi:10.1126/science.769159. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 769159.
- "Ergotism - The Satan Loosed in Salem - Caporael 1976.pdf". docs.google.com.
- Spanos, N. P.; Gottlieb, J. (1976-12-24). "Ergotism and the Salem Village witch trials". Science. 194 (4272): 1390–1394. Bibcode:1976Sci...194.1390S. doi:10.1126/science.795029. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 795029.
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