ACCUSED WITCH-MARGARET JONES
The following about Margaret Jones sent to me by John Stewart
Following is mainly I. Marc Carlson's research:
[Ref: History of Medway, MA]
Jones, Margaret: executed in Charlestown, North America, on 15 June, 1648
[Ref: The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, Karlsen, p. 20]
"...Massachusetts Bay executed its first witch in 1648. She was Margaret
Jones, and like Jane Hawkins and Anne Hutchinson, she was a midwife and lay
healer. Jones was accused of several different practices, only some of which
had to do with her profession, but it is impossible to say which activities
initiated the accusations against her. Minister John Hale, who witnessed Jones's
hanging in Boston when he was a boy, later said that she "was suspected partly
because that after some angry words passing between her and her Neighbors, some
mischief befell such neighbors in their Creatures, or the like: [and] partly
because some things supposed to be bewitched, or have a Charm upon them, being
burned, she came to the fire and seemed concerned. John Winthrop included
neither of these charges in his list of the evidence presented against Jones,
but suggested that the crimes had to do with her medical practice. She was
accused of having a "malignant touch," Winthrop noted, and her medicines were
said to have "extraordinary violent effects." When people refused to take her
medical advice, he added, "their diseases and hurts continued, with relapse
against the ordinary course, and beyond the apprehension of all physicians and
surgeons." Winthrop also mentioned that Jones was believed to possess psychic
powers: "some things which she foretold came to pass accordingly; other things
she could tell of ... she had no ordinary means to come to the knowledge of.
John Hale's account brings to the surface some of the community's views of
witchcraft. He pointed out that several of Jones's neighbors tried to get her
to confess and repent. One of them, he said, "prayed her to consider if God did
not bring this punishment upon her for some other crime, and asked, if she had
not been guilty of stealing many years ago." Jones admitted the theft, but she
refused to accept it as a reason for her conviction as a witch. Hale's
writings, on the other hand, showed that stealing, and other crimes such as
fornication and infanticide, were regularly associated with witchcraft, by both
the clergy and the larger population..."
[Ibid, p. 116]
"...sketchy information on the lives of New England's early witches, it appears
that Alice Young, Mary Johnson, Margaret Jones, Joan Carrington, and Mary
Parsons, all of whom were executed in the late 1640s and early 1650s, were women
without sons when the accusations were lodged. Elizabeth Godman, brought into
court at least twice on witchcraft charges in the 1650s, had neither brothers
nor sons."' Decade by decade, the pattern continued. Only Antinomian and Quaker
women, against whom accusations never generated much support, were, as a group,
exempt from it."
[Ibid, p. 128]
"...Dissatisfaction with one's lot was one of the most pervasive themes of
witches' lives. We find that women accused of witchcraft were involved in
petitions and court suits involving property, mistreatment, even divorce. A few
women, Katherine Harrison and Rachel Clinton being the most obvious examples,
repeatedly took their grievances to court for redress -- although legal channels
seem to have provided little satisfaction. Of course, the witches themselves
did not always initiate the official process that expressed their
dissatisfaction. Dorcas Hoar and Mary Johnson, to name only two of at least
fourteen women, had been charged with stealing prior to being accused of demonic
activities." Hoar was later accused of bewitching a child who threatened to
reveal the theft, while another witch, Margaret Jones, was asked whether she
did not think the witchcraft accusation God's way of punishing her for taking
what was not hers." The connections between the two crimes or between the
witch's earlier appearance in court and her later identification as a witch-were
rarely so clearly drawn."
[Ibid, p. 262]
Margaret Jones: Massachusetts's first witch, executed in Boston in 1648; her
husband Thomas was suspected as well, but he was never prosecuted.
Ref: Governor Winthrop's Journal (164 cool
"...At this court one Margaret Jones of Charlestown was indicted and found
guilty of witchcraft, and hanged for it. The evidence against her was, 1. that
she was found to have such a malignant touch, as many persons, (men, women, and
children,) whom she stroked or touched with any affection or displeasure, or,
etc., were taken with deafness, or vomiting, or other violent pains or sickness,
2. she practicing physic, and her medicines being such things as (by her own
confession) were harmless, as aniseed, liquors, etc., yet had extraordinary
violent effects, 3. she would use to tell such as would not make use of her
physic, that they would never be healed, and accordingly their diseases and
hurts continued, with relapse against the ordinary course, and beyond the
apprehension of all physicians and surgeons, 4. some things which she foretold
came to pass accordingly; other things she could tell of (as secret speeches,
etc.) which she had no ordinary means to come to the knowledge of, 5. she had
(upon search) an apparent teat in her secret parts as fresh as if it had been
newly sucked, and after it had been scanned, upon a forced search, that was
withered, and another began on the opposite side, 6. in the prison, in the clear
daylights there was seen in her arms, she sitting on the floor, and her clothes
up, etc., a little child, which ran from her into another room, and the officer
following it, it was vanished. The like child was seen in two other places, to
which she had relation; and one maid that saw it, fell sick upon it, and was
cured by the said Margaret, who used means to be employed to that end. Her
behavior at her trial was very intemperate, lying notoriously, and railing upon
the jury and witnesses, etc., and in the like distemper she died. The same day
and hour she was executed, there was a very great tempest at Connecticut, which
blew down many trees, etc."
Sources:
Hale, John (1636-1700). Modest Enquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft.
Boston, 1702.
Massachusetts (Colony). Records of the Governor and Company of the
Massachusetts Bay in New England, printed by order of the
legislature.
Winthrop, John (1588-1649). Winthrop's Journal, "History of
New England", 1630-1640. New York: C. Scribner's sons,
1908
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