Margaret Jones was hanged for witchcraft in Boston in 1648.
Margaret was a healer from Charlestown whose medical skills proved too effective for her neighbors’ comfort. When some who quarreled with her experienced misfortunes, they burned allegedly charmed objects to identify the witch responsible. Margaret arrived at the house during the burning and was immediately suspected. Authorities accused her of possessing a “malignant touch” that caused illness and medicines with “violent effects.” During investigation, she endured “watching,” being kept awake for hours to see if a familiar spirit would appear. One watcher claimed to see a small child that vanished when followed. Margaret was examined for witch marks and found to have one, though Alice Stratton defended her, saying it was a childbirth scar. On execution day, young minister John Hale visited Margaret in prison, urging her to confess to save her soul. She refused to belie herself and maintained her innocence until death. Governor John Winthrop documented Margaret’s case extensively in his journal, recording the evidence against her and noting that a great tempest struck Connecticut the same hour she was executed. Winthrop’s detailed account of Margaret Jones became one of the most influential early records of witchcraft proceedings in New England, setting precedents for evidence and procedure that would be referenced in future trials.
Sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Boston, Massachusetts
Sources:
David D. Hall, Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History 1638-1693
John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England
Paul B. Moyer, Detestable and Wicked Arts: New England and Witchcraft in the Early Modern Atlantic World