Salem Possessed

Salem Possessed Character List

Abigail Williams, Mary Walcott, Ann Putnam

They were some of the young accusers.

Tituba

She was a West Indian servant of Parris's, accused of being a witch.

Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Bridget Bishop, Elizabeth Proctor, Mary Easty, Sarah Buckley, Job Tookey, John Proctor, John Willard

They were the accused witches in Salem Village.

Reverend Deodat Lawson

Hailing from Norfolk, England, Lawson replaced Burroughs in the Salem Village church. After a period of calm, tensions broke out again and a faction opposed his ordination. The plan to ordain him was abandoned, and he left when his contract was fulfilled.

Reverend George Burroughs

He was a young minister chosen for the Salem Village church after Bayley's departure. He also quickly became unpopular and stopped meeting with his congregation; he was later arrested over a debt issue. Driven from the community, he was hauled back under arrest during the Trials and was executed as a suspected wizard.

Sir William Phips

The new governor of Massachusetts who arrived in May of 1692, he was one of the civil authorities who helped bring the Trials to an end.

Cotton Mather

He was the son of Increase Mather who preached out of Boston's First Church.

Increase Mather

He was an extremely influential clergyman in Boston and author of Cases of Conscience. He was instrumental in picking Phips for governor and advocated using more solid evidence in the Trials (as opposed to spectral evidence).

Reverend John Hale

The minister at the neighboring town of Beverly's church, he claimed that the girls' behavior was due to toying with the devil.

Mercy Short

She was a seventeen-year-old girl in Boston who exhibited strange behavior that people attributed to the devil, but this situation turned not into a witch-hunt but into an object lesson in piety and religious edification.

Jonathan Edwards

A prominent Puritan minister at the church in Northampton, he was best known for his "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" sermon.

Reverend James Bayley

The first minister brought to the Village, he became controversial due to the nature of his appointment, and many turned against him. He was accused of neglecting his congregation and his household duties, but the divisions over him went much deeper. He eventually gave up the fight and left the Village.

Reverend John Higginson

He was a minister of Salem Town.

Samuel Parris

The minister who replaced Lawson, he was given the parsonage and land and was able to finagle the church into official status and himself into official ordination. He was a source of contention and divide among the Villagers, who organized into pro- and anti-Parris factions. He was aggrieved by the absence of the peaceful and economically secure life he planned for himself in Salem, and used his sermons and the Witch Trials to, at least indirectly, strike back at his enemies. After the Trials, the anti-Parris faction continued to hound him, and after much pressure, Parris finally agreed to step down.

Reverend Nicholas Noyes

He was the assistant minister of Salem Town's church.

John Putnam

He was the initial Putnam patriarch.

John Porter

He was the initial Porter patriarch.

Israel Porter

He was the second-generation Porter patriarch, who tied the family even more closely to the Town.

Phillip English

An important ally of the Porter clan, he was a wealthy merchant and an emblem of the new capitalist forces sweeping the area. He was accused of witchcraft and escaped.

Daniel Andrew

One of the Porter daughter's husbands, and thus an ally of the Porters, he was accused of witchcraft and escaped.

Thomas Putnam, Sr.

He was the eldest son of John Putnam who first married Ann Holyoke and had eight children (two sons) by her, and then Mary Veren, by whom he had Joseph Putnam. He left most of his estate to Mary and Joseph.

Ann Holyoke

She was Thomas Putnam, Sr.'s first wife and mother to Thomas Putnam, Jr. and Edward.

Mary Veren Putnam

She was Thomas Putnam, Sr.'s second wife and mother to Joseph Putnam. She did not leave her stepchildren almost anything from her estate, thus incurring their resentment.

Thomas Putnam, Jr. and Edward Putnam

They were Thomas Putnam, Sr.'s two sons by Ann Holyoke. They were bitter because their father and then their stepmother, in their opinion, cut them out of much of their inheritance.

Joseph Putnam

The son of Thomas Putnam, Jr. and Mary Veren, he did not much identify with the Putnams but instead with the Porters, the family whom he married into. He was very wealthy and powerful, and his half-siblings resented him for seemingly taking much of their inheritance.

Joseph Green

The new minister after Parris, he helped bring the community together after the Trials.