What happened to Abigail? Include as many details as you can about her.

Abigail Williams was 1 of the first afflicted girls in the Salem Witch Trials.

Despite the fact that she was one of the chief accusers during the Salem Witch Trials, not much is known about Abigail Williams earlier or fifty-fifty later on the trials ended.

What historians do know is that Abigail Williams was built-in on July 12, 1680. At the time of the Salem Witch Trials, Abigail was living with her uncle, Reverend Samuel Parris, his daughter Betty Parris and Parris' slaves Tituba and John Indian. It is not known why Abigail was living with the Parris family but many historians presume her parents had died.

William's troubles began in the winter of 1691/2, when some of the afflicted girls were reportedly experimenting with fortune-telling techniques, specifically a technique known as the "venus-drinking glass" during which the girls dropped egg whites into a drinking glass of water and interpreted whatever shapes or symbols appeared in an endeavor to learn more about their time to come husbands.

According to the book A Minor Enquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft past local government minister, Reverend John Hale, on i of these occasions the girls became terrified when they saw the shape of a bury in the glass.

Soon subsequently the incident, in Jan of 1692, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams began behaving strangely, having fits, screaming out in hurting and complaining that invisible spirits were pinching them. Ann Putnam, Jr., and the other affected girls soon started experiencing the same symptoms.

Tituba and the Children, Illustration by Alfred Fredericks published in A Popular History of the Us, circa 1878

At the end of February, Reverend Samuel Parris chosen for a medico, who is believed to be Doctor William Griggs, simply he couldn't find anything wrong with the girls and determined they must be bewitched, according to Samuel Page Fowler in his book Business relationship of the Life and Character of Rev. Samuel Parris of Salem Village:

"Mr. Parris appears to have been much astonished, when the physicians informed him, that his daughter and niece were, no doubt, under an evil hand. At that place is evidence that Mr. Parris endeavored to keep the opinion of the physicians a secret, at least, till he could determine what course to pursue. At this time, Mary Sibley, a fellow member of his church, gave directions to John Indian how to find out, who bewitched Betsy Parris and Nabby Williams. This was done without the cognition of Parris. The means used to brand the discovery, was to brand a cake of rye meal, with the urine of the children, and bake it in the ashes, and give it to a dog to eat. Similar disgusting practices appear to accept been used to discover and kill witches, during the whole period of the delusion."

Simply a few days after the witch block incident, the affected girls named three women they believed were bewitching them: Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osbourne.

The women were arrested and examined on March i, 1692. During Tituba's examination she confessed that she was a witch and warned the court that at that place were other witches in Salem. This confession confirmed the colonist's greatest fears that the Devil had invaded the colony and sparked a mass hysteria and a massive witch chase in Salem.

Afterwards news of the witch chase spread throughout the colony, Reverend Deodat Lawson, the previous Salem minister, returned to Salem in mid-March to find out more about the suspicious activities in the hamlet.

Lawson witnessed and published a firsthand account of one of Abigail Williams' fits in his volume A Brief and True Narrative of Some Remarkable Passages Relating to Sundry Persons Affected by Witchcraft, at Salem Village:

"On the nineteenth day of March last I went to Salem Hamlet, and lodged at Nathaniel Ingersoll'southward near to the Minister Mr. P's Firm [Reverend Samuel Parris]…In the kickoff of the evening I went to give Mr. P. a visit. When I was there, his kinswoman, Abigail Williams, (about 12 years of age), had a grievous fit; she was at beginning hurried with violence to and fro in the room (though Mrs. Ingersol endeavored to hold her) sometimes making as if she would fly, stretching up her arms as high every bit she could, and crying, whish, whish, whish, several times; presently after she said, there was Goodw. N. and said, Do you not encounter her? Why there she stands! And said, Goodw. N. offered her the book, but she was resolved she would not accept it, saying often, I wont, I wont, I wont take information technology, I exercise not know what volume it is; I am sure it is none of God'due south book; it is the Devil's book for ought I know. After that, she ran to the fire, and began to throw fire-brands nearly the firm, and run against the back, every bit if she would run upwards chimney, and, as they said, she had attempted to go into the burn down in other fits."

The following twenty-four hours, Sunday, March 20, Abigail Williams disrupted services in the Salem Village meetinghouse several times due to the presence of accused witch Martha Corey. Corey had been accused of witchcraft the previous week and a warrant had been issued for her arrest on Saturday, March 19.

Since there wasn't plenty fourth dimension in the day to arrest Corey and warrants weren't served on Sundays, Corey was gratuitous until Mon and decided to nourish services, which upset the afflicted girls, co-ordinate to Rev. Deodat Lawson:

"On Lords day, the Twentieth of March, in that location were sundry of the afflicted persons at meeting, as Mrs. Pope, and Goodwife Bibber, Abigail Williams, Mary Walcut [sic], Mary Lewes [sic], and Doctor Grigg's maid. There was also at meeting, Goodwife C. [Corey] (who was later on examined on suspicion of being a witch.) They had several sore fits in the fourth dimension of public worship, which did something interrupt me in my first prayer, being and then unusual. After psalm was sung, Abigail Williams said to me, At present stand upward, and name your text! And after it was read, she said, Information technology is a long text…And in the afternoon, Abigail Williams, upon my referring to my doctrine, said to me, I know no doctrine yous had, If y'all did name i, I accept forgot it. In sermon time, when Goodwife C. was present in the meeting-business firm, Ab. Due west. [Abigail Williams] chosen out, Look where Goodwife C. sits on the beam suckling her yellow bird betwixt her fingers! Ann Putnam, another afflicted girl, said, There was a yellow bird sat on my hat equally it hang on the pin in the pulpit; only those that were by, restrained her from speaking aloud about it."

Too according to Lawson's account, On March 31, the colonists held a public fast due to the suspicious activities in the hamlet, during which Abigail Williams claimed she saw witches having a sacrament that twenty-four hours at a business firm in the village. Abigail said she saw the witches eating and drinking flesh and blood, which appeared as blood-red bread and a carmine drink.

This claim came up again during Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyces's exam on April xi, 1692, when Gauge Danforth asked Abigail Williams virtually it, according to court records:

Q. Abigail Williams! did y'all come across a company at Mr. Parris's house swallow and drink?
A. Yes Sir, that was their sacrament.
Q. How many were there?
A. About forty, and Goody Cloyse and Goody Skillful were their deacons.
Q. What was it?
A. They said information technology was our blood, and they had it twice that day.

It was during this examination that Abigail Williams and the other affected girls turned on John Proctor and accused him of witchcraft every bit well.

It is non known why exactly the girls defendant John Proctor just information technology is suspected that it was because Proctor was an outspoken critic of the girls, frequently calling them liars, and reportedly stated they should be whipped for lying.

In Arthur Miller's 1953 play, The Crucible, in which Abigail Williams makes an appearance as a major character, Williams is portrayed equally having an affair with John Proctor and accuses Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft so she can ally John herself afterwards Elizabeth is executed.

It is unlikely that this actually happened due to the age difference between the eleven-year-old Abigail Williams and the 60-year-former John Proctor at the fourth dimension. There is also no proof that Williams and Proctor even knew each other before the witch trails began.

However, Miller wrote in an essay for the New Yorker in 1996 that he was convinced John Proctor had a relationship with Williams. He explained that he based the entire play on this idea later he read virtually how Williams tried to strike Elizabeth Proctor during her test only instead brought her paw downwardly gently and softly touched Elizabeth earlier screaming out that her fingers burned:

"In this remarkably observed gesture of a troubled young daughter, I believed, a play became possible. Elizabeth Proctor had been the orphaned Abigail's mistress, and they had lived together in the same small house until Elizabeth fired the daughter. By this fourth dimension, I was sure, John Proctor had bedded Abigail, who had to be dismissed virtually likely to appease Elizabeth. In that location was bad blood betwixt the two women at present. That Abigail started, in effect, to condemn Elizabeth to expiry with her bear upon, and so stopped her paw, and so went through with information technology, was quite suddenly the man center of all this turmoil."

The Proctors weren't the only people Abigail Williams accused of witchcraft. As one of the main accusers during the Salem Witch Trials, Williams defendant nearly 57 people of witchcraft, according to court records:

Arthur Abbott
John Alden, Jr
Daniel Andrews
Sarah Bassett
Bridget Bishop
Edward Bishop
Sarah Bishop
Mary Blackness
George Burroughs
Sarah Buckley
Martha Corey
Giles Corey
Elizabeth Colson
Sarah Cloyce
Martha Carrier
Bethia Carter Jr
Lydia Dustin
Mary Easty
Martha Emerson
Phillip English
Mary English language
Thomas Farrer
John Flood
Elizabeth Fosdick
Sarah Expert
Elizabeth Hart
Dorcas Hoar
Abigail Hobbs
William Hobbs
Deliverance Hobbs
Elizabeth Howe
Rebecca Jacobs
George Jacobs, Jr
George Jacobs, Sr
Susannah Martin
Sarah Morey
Rebecca Nurse
Sarah Osbourne
Alice Parker
Sarah Pease
Sarah Proctor
Benjamin Proctor
William Proctor
John Proctor
Elizabeth Proctor
Ann Pudeator
Susannah Roots
Mary De Rich
Wilmot Redd
Sarah Rice
Tituba
Mary Toothaker
Roger Toothaker
Mary Warren
John Willard
Sarah Wildes
Mary Witheridge

Even though Abigail Williams defendant many victims at the beginning of the trials, specially in March, April, and May, she just testified confronting eight of them: Mary Easty, George Jacobs Sr, Susannah Martin, Rebecca Nurse, John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Mary Witheridge and John Willard and gave her last testimony on June 3, 1692.

Abigail Williams' testimony confronting George Jacobs, Jr, circa May 1692

Afterward that appointment, Williams disappears from the courtroom hearings, for reasons unknown. Information technology is possible her uncle, Reverend Samuel Parris, sent her away to forestall her from farther participating in the witch trials, just like he sent his daughter away, merely there is no evidence of this.

Of the people Williams accused and/or testified against, 15 were executed, 1 was tortured to death and the others either died in jail, were pardoned, were found not guilty, escaped jail or evaded abort all together.

After the witch trials concluded, several members of Reverend Samuel Parris' congregation fought for years to have Parris dismissed from the church due to his role in the Salem Witch Trials. His dissenters submitted a listing of problems they had with Parris, which included a number of problems that were directly related to Williams and the affected girls.

These bug involved the dissenter's inability to nourish church during the witch trials considering of "the distracting and disturbing tumults and noises, made by persons under diabolical power and delusions, preventing sometimes our hearing, understanding, and profiting past the words preached" and also Parris' "piece of cake and potent faith and conventionalities of the affirmations and accusations made by those they called afflicted."

In Nov of 1694, Parris responded to these claims by writing an essay, titled Meditations for Peace, in which he stated that God tried to teach him a lesson by allowing the witch hunt to brainstorm in his family unit.

The essay also states that the fact that some people in his household were accusers (Abigail Williams and Betty Parris) and the accused (Tituba) in the Salem Witch Trials was also a personal reprimand from God.

The essay also excused Betty Parris and Abigail Williams' behavior during the trials by stating that the Devil sometimes non just afflicts people in the shape of innocent people simply also deludes "the senses of the afflicted that they strongly conceive their hurt is from such persons, when indeed it it not."

As for himself, Parris acknowledged that using "one afflicted to inquire by who afflicts the others, I fear may be and has been unlawfully used, to Satan's great reward."

These acknowledgments did cypher to help Parris or his cause. In 1697, Parris' dissenters won and Parris was dismissed from his job equally minister of the church. He left Salem Village before long afterwards, taking Betty Parris and, nigh likely, Abigail Williams with him.

Neither Abigail Williams or Betty Parris ever apologized for their roles in the Salem Witch Trials. Ann Putnam, Jr., was the but afflicted girl who did when she submitted a written amends to the church in Salem Village in 1706.

Although Betty Parris later married and raised a family in Sudbury, Mass, there are no records indicating what happened to Abigail Williams after the Salem Witch Trials ended.

The book The Salem Witch Trials: a 24-hour interval by 24-hour interval Chronicle of a Community Under Siege states that Williams died in 1697:

"Abigail Williams, haunted to the end, apparently died before the end of 1697 if not sooner, no older than seventeen."

Withal, in that location is no proof of this though and this particular merits seems to be a vague reference to an bearding afflicted girl mentioned in Reverend John Hale's volume A Small Inquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft.

In Hale's book, published in 1697, he mentions an anonymous afflicted girl who suffered from "diabolical manifestation" until her death and died a single adult female. Since only 3 of the girls, Abigail Williams, Elizabeth Hubbard and Mary Warren, are unaccounted for in the records at the time, it is possible Unhurt was referring to Williams.

The location of Abigail Williams' grave is unknown.

The site of the Salem Village Parsonage, where Abigail Williams lived at the fourth dimension of the Salem Witch Trials, was excavated in 1970 and is open to visitors.

Abigail Williams Historical Sites:

Salem Village Parsonage Archaeological Site (home of Rev. Samuel Parris, Betty Parris, Abigail Williams and Tituba)
Address: Rear 67 Heart Street, Danvers, Ma (site is attainable via a cart path)

Former Site of the Salem Village Meetinghouse
Accost: Near corner of Hobart and Forest Street, Danvers, Mass. Historical marker on site.

Former Site of the Salem Courthouse
Address: Washington Street (well-nigh 100 feet south of Lynde Street), contrary the Masonic Temple, Salem, Mass. Memorial plaque located on Masonic Temple.

Sources:
Loma, Francis. The Salem Witch Trials Reader. DaCapo Printing, 2009.
Fowler, Samuel Page. An Business relationship of the Life, Character, & C., of the Rev. Samuel Parris of Salem Village. William Ives and George Westward. Pease, 1857.
Mather, Cotton. The Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New-England. John Dunton, 1692.
Lawson, Deodat. A Brief and Truthful Narrative of Some Remarkable Passages Relating to Sundry Persons Afflicted by Witchcraft, at Salem Hamlet; Which happened from the Nineteenth of March, to the 5th of Apr, 1692. Benjamin Harris, 1692.
"Browse the Salem Witchcraft Papers Name Alphabetize." Salem Witch Trials Documentary Annal and Transcription Project, University of Virginia, salem.lib.virginia.edu/texts/salemSearch.htm?q=Abigail%20Williams&rows=10&beginning=0

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Source: https://historyofmassachusetts.org/abigail-williams-salem/

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