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The hanging of Margaret Jones

When15 June 1648
WhereBoston, Massachusetts
DoorSomething Told
Our judgementObscurity 7 of 7

Margaret Jones of Charlestown was found guilty of witchcraft and hanged on 15 June 1648 per Governor Winthrop's journal.

The hanging of Margaret Jones
Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Governor Winthrop's journal has an entry for 15 June 1648. As Wikipedia quotes it, a court indicted Margaret Jones of Charlestown, found her guilty of witchcraft and hanged her. The first item of evidence Winthrop lists is a "malignant touch": he writes that many people she stroked or touched were taken with deafness, vomiting or violent pain.

A blog on Massachusetts history says the hanging took place from a tree on Boston Neck, a thin strip linking the peninsula where Boston stands with the mainland. ExecutedToday.com, quoting the Memorial History of Boston, adds that Thomas Jones, her husband, was arrested on the same charge and was never convicted. It describes her as a skilled medical practitioner. It says the usual spectres, fits and spasms were lacking, and that the main evidence rested on her imps, found by keeping watch on her.

Those are the accounts: the court's verdict as Winthrop recorded it, and the later retelling in the Memorial History.

From the primary source
""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.""
Wikipedia, Margaret Jones (Puritan midwife)Read the source →
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