Margaret Jones (Puritan midwife)
Encyclopedia
Margaret Jones was the first person to be executed for witchcraft
in Massachusetts Bay Colony
during a witch-hunt
that lasted from 1648 to 1663. About eighty people throughout New England
were accused of practicing witchcraft during that period. Thirteen women and two men were executed. Margaret Jones, who resided in the Charlestown
section of Boston, was a midwife and practiced medicine. Some of what caused her to be accused of witchcraft had to do with these practices. There are only two primary sources of information on Jones' plight: Governor John Winthrop
's journal and the observances of minister John Hale, who, as a 12-year-old boy, had witnessed Jones' execution.
which tried and convicted Jones. The others included deputy governor Thomas Dudley
and assistant governors John Endicott, Richard Bellingham
, William Hibbins
, Richard Salstonstall, Increase Nowell
, Simon Bradstreet
, John Winthrop, Jr., and William Pynchon
. Ann Hibbins
, who was executed for witchcraft in 1656, was reputed to be the sister of Richard Bellingham and was the widow of William Hibbins. William Hibbins was succeeded as assistant by Humphrey Atherton
, who sat in judgment of Ann Hibbins.
Winthrop's journal does not reveal anything specific that caused the accusations against Jones, or her husband, Thomas, who was also accused but not convicted. The case against her was built on evidence collected using the methods of English Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins
. Hopkins manual on witch-hunting was published one year before Jones' conviction. In it, Hopkins prescribed the practice of "watching" which required the accused to sit in a specific position, usually with legs crossed for a period of twenty four hours, during which she or he would be observed. If the person was a witch, it was supposed that within twenty four hours an imp would appear to feed off the witch. An imp was a small creature, or familiar, who depended upon the witch for daily sustenance. The watching of Margaret Jones occurred on May 18, 1648 and Winthrop recorded an imp was seen "In the clear light of day."
Winthrop recorded the evidence use to convict Jones 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."
, but had afterwards had a change of heart. Accusations of witchcraft against Rev. Hale's wife helped to bring an end to the proceedings.
It should be noted that Mary (Bliss) Parsons of Springfield was accused of witchcraft, acquitted of the crime and not executed.
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
in Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
during a witch-hunt
Witch-hunt
A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials...
that lasted from 1648 to 1663. About eighty people throughout New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
were accused of practicing witchcraft during that period. Thirteen women and two men were executed. Margaret Jones, who resided in the Charlestown
Charlestown, Massachusetts
Charlestown is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and is located on a peninsula north of downtown Boston. Charlestown was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; it became a city in 1847 and was annexed by Boston on January 5, 1874...
section of Boston, was a midwife and practiced medicine. Some of what caused her to be accused of witchcraft had to do with these practices. There are only two primary sources of information on Jones' plight: Governor John Winthrop
John Winthrop
John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer, and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of...
's journal and the observances of minister John Hale, who, as a 12-year-old boy, had witnessed Jones' execution.
Trial and conviction
Winthrop, as well as several other founders of the colony, as governor, was among the members of the General CourtGeneral Court
The General Court is the shorthand name for the:* General Court * New Hampshire General Court* Massachusetts General CourtThis term also formally applied to the:* Vermont General Assembly, formerly the Vermont General Court...
which tried and convicted Jones. The others included deputy governor Thomas Dudley
Thomas Dudley
Thomas Dudley was a colonial magistrate who served several terms as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Dudley was the chief founder of Newtowne, later Cambridge, Massachusetts, and built the town's first home...
and assistant governors John Endicott, Richard Bellingham
Richard Bellingham
Richard Bellingham was a colonial magistrate, lawyer, and several-time governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the last surviving signatory of the colonial charter at his death...
, William Hibbins
Ann Hibbins
Ann Hibbins was executed for witchcraft in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 19, 1656. Her execution was the third for witchcraft in Boston and predated the Salem Witch Trials. Hibbins was later fictionalized in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. A wealthy widow, Hibbins was reputed to be...
, Richard Salstonstall, Increase Nowell
Increase Nowell
Increase Nowell, , was a colonial administrator, original patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Company, founder of Charlestown, Massachusetts and first ruling elder of the First Church in Charlestown....
, Simon Bradstreet
Simon Bradstreet
Simon Bradstreet was a colonial magistrate, businessman, diplomat, and the last governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Arriving in Massachusetts on the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, Bradstreet was almost constantly involved in the politics of the colony but became its governor only in 1679...
, John Winthrop, Jr., and William Pynchon
William Pynchon
William Pynchon was an English colonist in North America best known as the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, United States. He was also a colonial treasurer, original patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the iconoclastic author of the New World's first banned book...
. Ann Hibbins
Ann Hibbins
Ann Hibbins was executed for witchcraft in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 19, 1656. Her execution was the third for witchcraft in Boston and predated the Salem Witch Trials. Hibbins was later fictionalized in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. A wealthy widow, Hibbins was reputed to be...
, who was executed for witchcraft in 1656, was reputed to be the sister of Richard Bellingham and was the widow of William Hibbins. William Hibbins was succeeded as assistant by Humphrey Atherton
Humphrey Atherton
Major-General Humphrey Atherton, an early settler of Dorchester, Massachusetts, held the highest military rank in colonial New England. He first appeared in the records of Dorchester on March 18, 1637 and made freeman May 2, 1638. He became deputy governor, a representative in the General Court,...
, who sat in judgment of Ann Hibbins.
Matthew Hopkins
Matthew Hopkins was an English witchhunter whose career flourished during the time of the English Civil War. He claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, although that title was never bestowed by Parliament...
. Hopkins manual on witch-hunting was published one year before Jones' conviction. In it, Hopkins prescribed the practice of "watching" which required the accused to sit in a specific position, usually with legs crossed for a period of twenty four hours, during which she or he would be observed. If the person was a witch, it was supposed that within twenty four hours an imp would appear to feed off the witch. An imp was a small creature, or familiar, who depended upon the witch for daily sustenance. The watching of Margaret Jones occurred on May 18, 1648 and Winthrop recorded an imp was seen "In the clear light of day."
Winthrop recorded the evidence use to convict Jones 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."
Witness to the execution
John Hale, who was born in Charlestown, was 12 years old when he, along with other neighbors of Jones, visited her in prison on the day of her execution. He said in his writing, Modest Inquiry p. 17, that part of the reason for the charges being brought upon the condemned woman was that after she had quarreled with some neighbors, "some mischief befell" some of their cattle. As an adult and a minister, Hale was an active participant in the bringing of charges in the Salem witch trialsSalem witch trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693...
, but had afterwards had a change of heart. Accusations of witchcraft against Rev. Hale's wife helped to bring an end to the proceedings.
The accusers, in aiming at such characters, overestimated their power; and the tide began to turn against them. But what finally broke the spell by which they had held the minds of the whole colony in bondage was their accusation, in October, of Mrs. Hale, the wife of the minister of the First Church in Beverly. Her genuine and distinguished virtues had won for her a reputation, and secured in the hearts of the people a confidence, which superstition itself could not sully nor shake. Mr. Hale had been active in all the previous proceedings; but he knew the innocence and piety of his wife, and he stood forth between her and the storm he had helped to raise: although he had driven it on while others were its victims, he turned and- resisted it when it burst in upon his own dwelling.
Thomas Jones
After Margaret Jones was put to death, her husband, Thomas, who had been released from prison, tried to leave the colony on the ship, Welcome, however the ship, which had a heavy load of cargo, had trouble keeping its balance in fair weather. When it was realized that the husband of a condemned witch was on board and he had quarreled with the captain, Thomas was arrested and put back into prison. Upon the man's arrest, it was claimed, the ship immediately righted itself.Other people executed for witchcraft in New England
Historian Clarence F. Jewett included a list of other people executed in New England in The Memorial History of Boston: Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts 1630–1880 (Ticknor and Company, 1881). He wrote,The following is the list of the twelve persons who were executed for witchcraft in New England before 1692, when twenty other persons were executed at Salem, whose names are well known. It is possible that the list is not complete ; but I have included all of which I have any knowledge, and with such details as to names and dates as could be ascertained : —
1647, — "Woman of Windsor," Connecticut (name, unknown)[later identified as Alice YoungAlse YoungAlse Young of Windsor, Connecticut, was the first person in the records executed for witchcraft in the thirteen American colonies.-Background:...
], at Hartford.
1648, — Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, at Boston.
1648,— Mary Johnson, at Hartford.
1650? — Henry Lake's wife, of Dorchester.
1650?—Mrs. Kendall, of Cambridge.
1651, — Mary Parsons, of Springfield, at Boston.
1651, — Goodwife Bassett, at Fairfield, Conn.
1653,—Goodwife Knap, at Hartford.
1656, — Ann HibbinsAnn HibbinsAnn Hibbins was executed for witchcraft in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 19, 1656. Her execution was the third for witchcraft in Boston and predated the Salem Witch Trials. Hibbins was later fictionalized in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. A wealthy widow, Hibbins was reputed to be...
, at Boston.
1662, — Goodman Greensmith, at Hartford.
1662,— Goodwife Greensmith, at Hartford.
1688,— Goody GloverAnn GloverGoodwife "Goody" Glover was the last person to be hanged in Boston as a witch.-Background:Ann Glover was born in Ireland as a Roman Catholic. Oliver Cromwell sold her into slavery and sent her off to Barbados in the 1650s...
, at Boston."
It should be noted that Mary (Bliss) Parsons of Springfield was accused of witchcraft, acquitted of the crime and not executed.