The arbitrators decided that the inhabitants should pay to Mr. Parris a certain amount for arrearages, and also the sum of L79. 9_s._ 6_d._ for all his right and interest in the ministry house and land, and that he be forthwith dismissed; and his ministerial relation to the church and society in Salem Village dissolved.  The parish raised the money with great alacrity.  Nathaniel Ingersoll, who had, as has been stated, made him a present at his settlement of a valuable piece of land adjoining the parsonage grounds, bought it back, paying him a liberal price for it, fully equal to its value; and he left the place, so far as appears, for ever.

On the 14th of July, 1696, in the midst of his controversy with his people, his wife died.  She was an excellent woman; and was respected and lamented by all.  He caused a stone slab to be placed at the head of her grave, with a suitable inscription, still plainly legible, concluding with four lines, to which his initials are appended, composed by him, of which this is one:  “Farewell, best wife, choice mother, neighbor, friend.”  Her ashes rest in what is called the Wadsworth burial ground.

Mr. Parris removed to Newton, then to Concord; and in November, 1697, began to preach at Stow, on a salary of forty pounds, half in money and half in provisions, &c.  A grant from the general court was relied upon from year to year to help to make up the twenty pounds to be paid in money.  Afterwards he preached at Dunstable, partly supported by a grant from the general court, and finally in Sudbury, where he died, Feb. 27, 1720.  His daughter Elizabeth, who belonged, it will be remembered, to the circle of “afflicted children” in 1692, then nine years of age, in 1710 married Benjamin Barnes of Concord.  Two other daughters married in Sudbury.  His son Noyes, who graduated at Harvard College in 1721, became deranged, and was supported by the town.  His other son Samuel was long deacon of the church at Sudbury, and died Nov. 22, 1792, aged ninety-one years.

In the “Boston News Letter,” No. 1433, July 15, 1731, is a notice, as follows:—­

“Any person or persons who knew Mr. Samuel Parris, formerly of Barbadoes, afterwards of Boston in New England, merchant, and after that minister of Salem Village, &c., deceased to be a son of Thomas Parris of the island aforesaid, Esq. who deceased 1673, or sole heir by will to all his estate in said island, are desired to give or send notice thereof to the printer of this paper; and it shall be for their advantage.”

Whether the identity of Mr. Parris, of Salem Village, with the son of Thomas Parris, of Barbadoes, was established, we have no information.  If it was, some relief may have come to his descendants.  There is every reason to believe, that, after leaving the village, he and his family suffered from extremely limited means, if not from absolute poverty.  The general ill-repute brought upon him by his conduct in the