Massachusetts Witch Hysteria: Margaret Jones
Our story begins with Margaret Jones, a midwife…
England was suffering its own Witch-related panics since 1561 with the execution of Agnes Waterhouse. It would pick up in 1612 with the Pendle Witch Trials, then die until the early 1640s. A gentleman named Matthew Hopkins was the self-proclaimed Witchfinder general who led almost 300 people to their deaths through false accusations. His “Watching” method was one of the most common as it was not considered an illegal torture method. So, he legally tortured them through sleep deprivation and swimming the witch. His methods would sink over to the American colonies, where it would spread and grow.
By 1648, colonists had only been in New England for 28 Years, but it took only 27 for England’s witchcraft hysteria to follow them overseas. In Connecticut, Alyse Young had been hanged the year prior in 1647. A woman named Jane Hawkins had been accused in 1638; she was involved in the complex delivery of the stillborn child of Mary Dyer. But it did not stick, and she was since banished from the colony.
Margaret Jones was around 32 years old at the time of her accusation; not much survived except the accounts of John Hale and John Winthrop. Shortly after her accusation and arrest, they performed the task of “watching,” which meant they deprived Margaret of food and sleep for more than a day. Hoping that one of her imps may come to her to suckle on one of her “witches' teats.”
On May 18th, 1648, John Winthrop Jr recorded in his journal that he saw an imp during this time.
“In the clear light of day”
She was brought to trial soon after, and on June 15th, she was convicted and sentenced to death. During her trial, John Winthrop Jr described her as hysterical and angry, whereas when the young John Hale went to see her in jail, he described her as calm and collected. Six pieces of evidence were used against her in her trial; John Winthrop Jr recorded this in his journal.
“June 15, 1648: 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. [sic], were taken with deafness, or vomiting, or other violent pains or sickness.”
2. She practising physic, and her medicines being such things as, by her own confession, were harmless, — as anise-seed, 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 would 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 … 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 day-light, 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.”
John Hale wrote in his 1697 Book.
The day of her execution I went in company of some neighbors, who took great pains to bring her to confession and repentance. But she confidently professed herself innocent of that crime. Then one 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. She answered she stolen something, but it was long since and she had repented of it, and there was Grace in Christ to pardon that long ago but as for Witchcraft
She was wholly free from it
And so she said unto her death.
Then on June 15th, after her trial, Margaret was brought from the Boston Jail on Prison Lane to the Boston Neck, about a 30-minute trip to the gallows. Whether the gallows were a tree and a ladder or proper gallows, Margaret met her unjust end; she was about 35 years old.
Margaret was possibly the first; the execution of Elizabeth Kendall is disputed to have taken between 1647–1651. But Margaret was the first recorded Witchcraft execution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Her death began an almost 50-year Witch panic ending in May of 1693; after 219, people would have their lives changed due to this hysteria.
Sources
- Winthrop’s Journal, “History of New England,” 1630–1649, Volume 7. Edited by James Kendall Hosmer. C. Scribner’s sons, 1908. p. 344
- Hale, John. A Modest Enquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft. B. Green and J. Allen, 1702. p. 17
- Karlsen, Carol F. The devil in the shape of a woman: witchcraft in colonial New England. W. W. Norton & Company. 1998, p. 20
