The first Congregational Church in America was organized there in 1629, and Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island colony, served as an early pastor. The town’s name is probably the shortened form of the biblical Jerusalem (“City of Peace”). Salem’s early history was clouded by ...
In 1689, through the influence of the Putnams,Samuel Parris, a merchant from Boston by way ofBarbados, became the pastor of the village’sCongregationalchurch. Parris, whose largely theological studies at Harvard College (nowHarvard University) had been interrupted before he could graduate, was in...