921.73 W589w.pdf - Mesa FamilySearch Library

98 3/[emoir of
this Court (1648) one Margaret Jones of
Charlestown was indicted and found guilty
of witchcraft, and hanged for it."_ " The husband
of the woman, after she was executed,
had taken his passage in a ship which lay in
Charles River, bound to Barbadoes, well bal-
lasted, but with eighty horses on board, and
being observed to roll on a sudden, as if she
would overset, an officer was sent (by the
magistrates of the County Court, then sitting
in Boston) to apprehend the man; and after
he was committed to prison, the ship ceased
rolling, which, it is said, was never renewed
afterwards."]" Thus began in Massachusetts
the deplorable crusade against witchcraft, fol-
lowed by the sacrifice of innocent blood. The
trial and sentence of Mrs. Jones was one of
the last and most lamentable public acts of
Winthrop's life. He died in the following
year. But it must not be forgotten that the
delusion which clouded his mind and de-
stroyed his moral perceptions at the time was
See I Upham's Hist. of Witchcraft, 4I 7.
t I Ifutchinson's tlist., I4I , I42. 2 Winthrop's Ilist., 399.