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 (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., 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

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------