ACCUSED WITCH-MARGARET JONES

The following about Margaret Jones sent to me by

John Stewart

------------------------additional material on Margaret
Jones---------------------
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


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