The First Witch of Boston Summary: A Tale of Persecution

Last Updated: October 3, 2026

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Table of Contents

TL;DR: Four Years, One Marriage, One Verdict

In June 1646, a midwife and her cabinetmaker husband step off a ship into the Massachusetts Bay Colony carrying a false name and a real secret.

Margaret “Maggie” Jones is an English herbalist trained by her grandmother, sharp-tongued and unusually skilled at reading illness in a person’s body before they describe it.

Her husband, Thomas, is a quiet Irish joiner who came to the New World to build furniture and a quiet life.

The First Witch of Boston by Andrea Catalano follows the couple through four years in Charlestown and Boston, where their marriage, their work, and Maggie’s refusal to soften her speech place them on a collision course with Puritan authority.

The novel draws on the documented case of Margaret Jones, executed in 1648 as the first person tried for witchcraft in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Maggie and Thomas Jones flee London after a noblewoman abuses Maggie’s herbal tincture, murders her husband, and blames the medicine. In Charlestown they build a home: Thomas makes fine furniture, Maggie delivers babies and mixes remedies.

Their daughter Bess is born in March 1647 and dies of scarlet fever ten months later. Maggie’s grief, her outspokenness, and her medical successes turn neighbors into accusers.

Core engine: Female knowledge treated as a threat by a rigid patriarchal colony.
Key relationship: A marriage of equals, rare for the period, tested by jealousy, betrayal, and loss.
Turning point: A wealthy widow’s schemes and a pinned poppet convert suspicion into a legal case.
Outcome: Trial before the General Court, conviction, and execution on June 15, 1648.

The novel is not a mystery about whether Maggie is a witch. It is a chronicle of how a community assembles a case against a woman it has already decided to fear.

Who Will Enjoy This Book

Readers of colonial American historical fiction built around real court records.
Those drawn to witch-trial narratives told from inside a marriage rather than from the bench.
Readers who prefer atmospheric, sensory historical detail over fast action.

The First Witch of Boston Summary Andrea Catalano (2)

Book Snapshot

Genre & Subgenre: Historical Fiction; Colonial American Historical Drama; Puritan Witch Trial Fiction.
Core Narrative Tropes: Devoted marriage and equal partnership; the outspoken woman ahead of her time; scapegoating and community hysteria; hidden past secrets.
Tone & Atmosphere: Lyrical, sensory, intimate, somber, and emotionally raw.
Primary Conflict: Individual agency, female autonomy, and folk healing versus Puritan religious orthodoxy and patriarchal paranoia.
Pacing Style: Two first-person perspectives in chronological order. Part I builds domestic warmth and rising tension; Part II accelerates through trial and execution; the epilogue jumps years and continents.
Book Structure: One prologue, two parts containing 29 chapters, an epilogue, an author’s note, and acknowledgments.
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (September 1, 2025).
Pages: 347.
ISBN-10: 1662526008 | ISBN-13: 978-1662526008.

The First Witch of Boston Summary: What Happens in the Novel

Spoiler warning: this section describes the full plot, including the ending.

Thomas and Margaret Jones arrive in Charlestown in June 1646 under an assumed surname. Their real names are O’Byrn and Drinkwater, and a price hangs over Maggie in England.

There, she treated Lady Wembly with a Saint John’s Wort tincture. Lady Wembly then murdered her husband and took her own life, and her family blamed the medicine.

Thomas finds steady work as a cabinetmaker. Maggie builds an apothecary and midwife practice. Their neighbors Samuel and Alice Stratton become their closest friends.

Maggie’s manner sets her apart. She feeds strawberries to a man locked in the pillory on the Sabbath and argues scripture with former Governor John Endecott.

After years of miscarriages, Maggie gives birth to Elizabeth, called Bess, on March 30, 1647. Thomas carves her a maple cradle.

Trouble arrives through Jane Hallett, a young, wealthy, vain widow. She asks Maggie for aphrodisiac roots and blister beetle powder for a love spell, and Maggie refuses her.

Widow Hallett then turns to Thomas, inviting him to her house to measure for a table. There she secretly doses his ale with an herbal posit.

Drugged and disoriented, Thomas is manipulated into an encounter and collapses. He wakes in guilt, and the widow’s Irish servant Mary Doyle confirms he was poisoned.

He returns home to find ten-month-old Bess gravely ill with scarlatina. Herbal baths and prayers fail, and Bess dies on January 24, 1648.

Maggie unravels. She leaves food offerings for Bess’s spirit and speaks to her unseen presence. On what would have been Bess’s first birthday, a tortoiseshell cat appears in the garden, and Maggie names her Molly.

Accusations follow. Goody Hall, whose stillborn child Maggie delivered, publicly calls her the Devil’s hand. Goody Weston claims sorcery over a croup treatment.

Widow Hallett marries the new minister, Reverend Longfellow. Mary Doyle brings Maggie a poppet found in the new wife’s wardrobe, stuck with thirteen pins and filled with black curls.

Goody Longfellow then faints in the market square and claims Maggie cast a dark presence over her. On May 12, 1648, constables arrest Maggie for witchcraft, for keeping a familiar, and for hexing a neighbor’s cow.

She is jailed in Boston while Thomas and the Strattons gather witnesses. Former Governor Richard Bellingham, whom Maggie treated for gout, refuses to testify and protect his own standing.

Nine magistrates of the General Court hear the case, including Governor John Winthrop and Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley. Neighbors recast herbal treatments, casual remarks, and successful deliveries as evidence of dark arts.

Maggie defends her remedies by name, including walnut oil, cloves, and aniseed, and dismisses the court’s superstitions outright.

The court orders a bodily search led by examiner Martha Wheeler. A heart-shaped birthmark on Maggie’s thigh is declared a Devil’s teat, and a retractable, bloodless witch pricker manufactures further proof.

Constable James Baldwin watches her overnight as fever sets in. She speaks of Bess, treats a maid’s seizure with a wooden spoon, and Molly the cat walks through the open cell door.

The court reads these events as supernatural. Winthrop delivers the verdict: guilty.

On her last night, Thomas confesses the encounter with Widow Hallett and the drugging. Maggie forgives him and reveals her own secret: at fifteen, after an assault in Reading, she bore a daughter given to the Wells family.

She makes Thomas swear to destroy her journals and belongings so no trace of her can drag him down.

On June 15, 1648, under a brewing storm, Maggie is brought to the gallows on Common Hill. She declares her innocence and says she is being executed for the crime of being a woman who lived fully and spoke plainly.

She bids Thomas a final Irish farewell and is hanged. Alice Stratton shouts from the crowd that Maggie is innocent and that her blood is on the magistrates’ hands.

Afterward, Thomas finds a hidden letter in Maggie’s diary naming her first daughter, Constance Wells. He leaves Massachusetts for Maryland, where Catholics live in peace.

He sails back to England, finds twenty-five-year-old Constance, gives her a bag of gold, and invites her to start again with him. The novel ends with Thomas, Constance, and Molly crossing the Atlantic together.

Summary by Chapter

Spoiler warning: this section outlines every chapter, including the ending.

The book contains 33 sections in total: a prologue, two parts holding 29 chapters (Part I, Chapters 1–20; Part II, Chapters 21–29), an epilogue, an author’s note, and acknowledgments.

Prologue — Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay Colony, June 28, 1648

Thomas Jones tries to leave Massachusetts aboard the ship Welcome with his belongings and his cat, Molly. As he boards, the vessel lists heavily to starboard and panic spreads among the passengers.

A passenger recognizes him and shouts that he is the husband of Margaret Jones, the witch hanged two weeks earlier. Accused of using dark magic to capsize the ship, Thomas is forced off by Captain Davies and constables, after which the ship rights itself.

Homeless, he takes refuge with Samuel and Alice Stratton, where he finds Maggie’s hidden journal tucked inside her gown.

Chapter 1 (June 21, 1646)

Maggie and Thomas share an intimate morning in Charlestown and discuss their hopes for a child after years of childless marriage. Thomas mentions a commission from the wealthy young Widow Jane Hallett to build a large wardrobe, and Maggie reacts with immediate suspicion.

In Boston, Thomas inspects the Hallett house on Milk Street and meets the Irish servant Mary Doyle. He returns home, describes the widow to Maggie, and she teases him before leading him to their bedchamber.

Chapter 2 (August 10, 1646)

Maggie records in her journal that she refused Widow Hallett’s request for a potion to make her irresistible to a suitor. The widow then visits Thomas’s workshop to inspect cherrywood, worrying Maggie further.

During a heatwave, Maggie treats Thomas with a camphor poultice and says she longs to return to London. Thomas reminds her that a price remains on her head after Lady Wembly blamed her tincture for her husband’s murder.

Chapter 3 (August 30, 1646)

Maggie confirms she is three months pregnant. Thomas, delivering a finished cradle to Goody Kitchin, shares the news.

In the market square, Maggie gives strawberries to a young man suffering in the pillory for breaking the Sabbath. Former Governor John Endecott confronts her, she quotes scripture back at him, and Thomas defuses the moment by mentioning her pregnancy.

Chapter 4 (September 15, 1646)

Thomas and Maggie dine with Samuel and Alice Stratton, exchanging stories of how they met in England. Maggie describes choosing Thomas at a Midsummer fair and says she wanted a man confident enough to handle her.

That night a boy summons Maggie to a difficult birth at the Moore household. With Alice’s help, she delivers healthy twins.

Chapter 5 (December 29, 1646)

Six months pregnant, Maggie has vivid dreams of a daughter named Elizabeth, and her diagnostic intuition sharpens enough to unsettle townspeople. She offers Goodman Mason sandalwood oil and intimate advice, and he reacts angrily before accepting a free sample.

Thomas scolds her for speaking without filter, and Maggie cries in remorse. On Sunday, Goody Mason publicly thanks her, showing the town’s divided response.

Chapter 6 (March 30, 1647)

After ten hours of difficult labor, Maggie delivers a healthy girl named Elizabeth, called Bess. Thomas waits outside in terror of losing wife or child.

Alice Stratton and her daughter-in-law Sarah assist and clean the infant. Thomas worries about the baby’s misshapen head until Alice reassures him, then holds his daughter and calls her Taisce, the Irish word for treasure.

Chapter 7 (May 17, 1647)

Maggie nurses Bess and takes hops and fennel teas to keep her milk. She and Thomas share a joyful moment when Bess smiles for the first time, while Thomas keeps pace with mounting furniture orders.

Widow Hallett visits the workshop pretending to order a bed and makes subtle advances. Thomas defends Maggie when the widow calls her a cunning woman.

Chapter 8 (July 14, 1647)

When four-month-old Bess grows irritable after Widow Hallett touches her cheek, Maggie fears the Evil Eye and makes a protective sachet of dried rue. A frank conversation follows about Thomas’s fleeting attraction to the widow, which he acknowledges while reaffirming his devotion.

At the lumber mill, Governor Winthrop and Deputy Governor Dudley warn Thomas to rein in his wife. Samuel Stratton later tells Thomas privately that town gossip is painting Maggie as dangerous.

Chapter 9 (October 22, 1647)

Maggie treats young Jacob Weston’s severe croup by opening windows to purge ill humors, and his mother Goody Weston accuses her of dark arts. Thomas takes seven-month-old Bess for an evening walk to the docks and reflects on his journey from Ireland to Massachusetts.

He and Maggie argue again about her bluntness, and the next day Goodman Weston visits the workshop, where Maggie allays his fears.

Chapter 10 (December 2, 1647)

Goody Hall’s baby is stillborn from an umbilical cord strangulation, the first infant loss of Maggie’s career. Widow Hallett then asks Maggie for aphrodisiacs including satyrion root and blister beetle powder, and Maggie refuses her indignantly.

Three weeks later, outside the Meeting House, Goody Hall screams that Maggie is the Devil’s hand, and her husband joins the accusation. Thomas begs Maggie to flee, but she refuses to run when she has done nothing wrong.

Chapter 11 (January 16, 1648)

A bitter silence persists between the couple as Thomas buries himself in work. During a January thaw, Widow Hallett invites him to her house to measure for a table, and Maggie leaves to treat Goodman Page’s gout while Bess demonstrates she can walk.

At the Strattons’, Samuel and Alice urge Thomas to reconcile with his wife. The next morning at the widow’s house, he drinks spiked stout, loses control, and collapses unconscious.

Chapter 12 (January 17, 1648)

Thomas wakes on Widow Hallett’s daybed, where Mary Doyle tells him the widow laced his ale with an herbal posit and promises to keep it secret. He returns home in shame to find ten-month-old Bess gravely ill with scarlatina.

Maggie uses herbal baths and prayers while Thomas recites Catholic Hail Marys. They stay awake all night.

Chapter 13 (January 24, 1648)

Bess dies of scarlet fever despite their efforts. Maggie shrieks in grief while Thomas goes numb.

Maggie prepares a mithridate of poppy, which both of them take, and they lie in bed for days in an opium haze. When they finally rise, Thomas recognizes that their marriage has been irrevocably altered.

Chapter 14 (January 27, 1648)

Bess is buried in an oak coffin Thomas carves and hand-varnishes with his own blood. Alice Stratton brings food in the following weeks.

Maggie sets out food offerings for Bess’s spirit and holds conversations with an unseen presence, telling Goodman Mason plainly that she is speaking to her child. Widow Hallett corners Thomas near the woodpile, and he violently repels her.

Chapter 15 (March 3, 1648)

Former Governor Richard Bellingham summons Maggie to his Winnisimmet lodge to treat his gout, and he and his young wife treat her hospitably. While she is away, Daniel Spence travels from Dorchester for more virility oil, praising its effects while questioning God’s will.

Maggie returns at dawn, refreshed. Goody Tanner then demands an immediate cure for her son’s cough and accuses Maggie of cursing the boy when she hesitates, responding to the free remedy with cold hostility.

Chapter 16 (March 28, 1648)

News spreads that Widow Hallett has married the newly arrived minister Reverend Longfellow, and the Joneses and Strattons celebrate the news at dinner. Walking home, Goodman Storey confronts Samuel over a cow that ate Alice’s onion greens.

Maggie ridicules the cow, Storey calls her a cunning woman, and Alice and Thomas warn her against making enemies. Maggie storms off to check on her vision of Bess.

Chapter 17 (March 30, 1648)

On Bess’s birthday, a tortoiseshell cat appears in the garden and Maggie names her Molly, treating her as a spiritual gift. The cat bonds deeply with Maggie and comforts her grief.

Goody Pierce visits for a sciatica poultice and insults Molly, and Maggie says the cat senses her cruel thoughts. When Goody Pierce accuses her of cursing her, Thomas intervenes, and Maggie begs him to relocate to New Amsterdam, which he refuses.

Chapter 18 (April 17, 1648)

Gathering wild cranberries near Willis Creek, Maggie meets an elderly Winnisimmet woman who teaches her to harvest Indian White Hellebore root. Governor Winthrop and his son encounter them, and Winthrop scolds her for learning from “savages.”

Maggie defends Native American humanity and infuriates him. At church, she notices the new Goody Longfellow appears pregnant, and Thomas sees Jane Longfellow watching them like a hawk.

Chapter 19 (May 4, 1648)

Mary Doyle secretly brings Maggie a poppet found in Jane Longfellow’s wardrobe, filled with black woolen curls and stuck with thirteen pins. Maggie is outraged and believes Jane cursed her womb and her dead daughter.

Thomas urges caution and forbids a confrontation without proof. A week later, Jane Longfellow faints in the market square claiming Maggie cast a dark presence over her, a public scene Thomas recognizes as sealing Maggie’s fate.

Chapter 20 (May 12, 1648)

Constables arrive with a warrant for Maggie’s arrest on charges of witchcraft, keeping a familiar, and hexing Goodman Storey’s cow. Her defiant outbursts and mentions of Bess are recorded as evidence of madness.

Thomas offers fines or coin, and the constable refuses. Maggie is locked in a cage wagon for Boston beside a town drunkard named Salty, Molly leaps in to stay with her, and Thomas and the Strattons begin listing character witnesses.

Chapter 21

Maggie stands before the General Court in chains and lice, reflecting on the nine male magistrates. Jacob Weston testifies about the croup cure, and his mother claims Maggie’s herbal chants resembled sorcery.

Goodman Proctor defends her, describing how her oil massages helped him pass bladder stones, while his daughter Martha claims the stones bore demon faces. Maggie scoffs openly at the superstitious readings of her care.

Chapter 22

After a recess in which dog feces is thrown at her in the street, Maggie faces Daniel Spence of Dorchester. He admits the virility oil worked but says it turned his wife into a wanton woman who ran off.

Maggie details her formula’s natural ingredients, including walnut oil, clove, guinea pepper, aniseed, and blister beetle powder. Endecott accuses her of facilitating sin, and Winthrop announces that English witch-hunting methods from Matthew Hopkins’s treatise will apply.

Chapter 23

Governor Bellingham visits the cell with Thomas and urges Maggie to confess to avoid a physical examination. She refuses to confess to a lie and says she does not fear nakedness.

Alone with Thomas, she recalls a memory from age fourteen in Reading, when two gentlemen bought green fly dust from her grandmother. The memory marks her early exposure to the dangers surrounding herbalism.

Chapter 24

Goody Pierce testifies that Molly the cat is an evil familiar who leered at her and caused her sciatica. Goody Hall wails that Maggie caused her stillborn baby and three earlier infants, and Maggie explains the infant was breech and strangled by the cord, the single loss of her career.

The court reveals the couple changed their surname from O’Byrn and Drinkwater to Jones. Winthrop then raises London, where Lady Wembly murdered her husband and killed herself after abusing Maggie’s tincture.

Chapter 25

Three female examiners led by Martha Wheeler disrobe Maggie to search for witch marks. They find a small heart-shaped birthmark on her inner thigh and declare it a Devil’s teat.

Wheeler applies a retractable witch pricker that draws no blood, confirming the mark, and a thumbnail crescent on the other thigh is claimed as a second teat. Maggie exposes the trickery, and the examiners dismiss her and report their findings.

Chapter 26

Maggie endures an overnight watch in a cell with the door ajar, monitored by the Scottish constable James Baldwin. Feverish, she talks with him about his Covenanters past and shares memories of Bess.

In her delirium she perceives Bess’s spirit, and a visiting maid suffers an apoplectic fit that Maggie treats with a wooden spoon. Morning comes, and Molly walks through the open door to sit beside her, giving the court final visual proof of a familiar.

Chapter 27

On the last day, Martha Wheeler testifies about the birthmarks and the bloodless needle, and Baldwin recounts the overnight watch. Constable Johnson claims Maggie cursed him with nightmares, and Thomas tries to intervene.

Winthrop reads the unanimous guilty verdict and sentences Margaret Jones to hang on Monday, June 15, 1648, while Jane Longfellow watches from the gallery with a smirk. Bellingham removes Maggie’s shackles as a courtesy so Thomas can spend her last night beside her.

Chapter 28

Thomas tearfully confesses the encounter with Widow Hallett and the drugging, and Maggie forgives him completely. She then reveals that at fifteen, after an assault, she bore a daughter given to the Wells family near Reading.

She makes Thomas swear to destroy her journals, belongings, and receipts. The next morning Minister John Hale urges repentance, Jane Longfellow visits to gloat, and Maggie warns her that evil deeds return threefold before Jane drops her poppet and flees.

Chapter 29

A tempest brews over Boston as Maggie is carted to the gallows on Common Hill on June 15, 1648. Before the crowd and the nine magistrates, she declares her innocence and condemns the court for executing a woman for living fully and speaking plainly.

Alice Stratton shouts that Maggie is innocent and that her blood is on the magistrates’ hands. Maggie locks eyes with Thomas, offers a final Irish farewell, and is hanged.

Epilogue

Years later, Thomas lives in Maryland, where Catholics enjoy religious freedom, farming prosperously and keeping contact with the Strattons. Reading Maggie’s diary after her execution, he found her confession letter about her firstborn daughter, Constance.

He traveled to England, located twenty-five-year-old Constance Wells, gave her a sack of gold, and invited her to Maryland. The novel closes with Thomas, Constance, and Molly aboard ship, bound across the Atlantic.

Author’s Note

Andrea Catalano explains that the novel grew from postgraduate research at Cambridge University into early New England settlers and witch trials.

She notes that Margaret Jones was a real historical figure executed on June 15, 1648, as the first person tried for witchcraft in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

She identifies which characters and events came from primary records, such as Winthrop’s journals and court documents, and which were invented, including the daughter Bess.

She also notes that Samuel and Alice Stratton were real friends fined by the court for defending Margaret’s memory.

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Characters In This Book

Character	Role
Margaret “Maggie” Jones	English midwife and herbal apothecary in Charlestown; the novel’s protagonist and the woman tried for witchcraft.
Thomas Jones	Maggie’s Irish husband, a master cabinetmaker and joiner; narrator of Part I.
Elizabeth “Bess” Jones	Daughter of Thomas and Maggie, born March 1647 and dead of scarlatina at ten months.
Samuel “Sam” Stratton	Red-bearded carpenter and Charlestown neighbor; friend to Thomas and Maggie.
Alice Stratton	Samuel’s wife and Maggie’s closest friend, who assists at Bess’s birth and defends Maggie publicly.
Jane Hallett / Goody Longfellow	Wealthy widow who drugs Thomas and later, as the minister’s wife, orchestrates accusations against Maggie.
Mary Doyle	Irish indentured servant to Jane Hallett; reveals the drugging and delivers the poppet to Maggie.
Governor John Winthrop	Leader of Massachusetts Bay Colony who presides over Maggie’s trial and reads the verdict.
Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley	Magistrate who interrogates witnesses to frame Maggie’s remedies as sorcery.
Assistant Governor Richard Bellingham	Wealthy magistrate and former governor whom Maggie treats for gout; he refuses to testify for her.
Assistant Governor John Endecott	Former governor who clashes with Maggie over Sabbath ministrations and condemns her at trial.
John Winthrop the Younger	Governor Winthrop’s son, an alchemy student who treats Maggie with intellectual curiosity.
Reverend Longfellow	Young minister who marries Jane Hallett.
Goody Hall & Goodman Hall	Charlestown couple whose stillborn child Maggie delivered; they accuse her publicly.
Goody Weston & Jacob Weston	Mother and son involved in the croup treatment that prompts an accusation of dark arts.
Goodman Mason & Goody Mason	Local couple whose marriage improves after Maggie provides sandalwood oil.
Goodman Storey	Ill-tempered neighbor who accuses Maggie of hexing his cow.
Goody Pierce & Goodman Pierce	Townswoman who accuses Maggie of cursing her with sciatica and calls Molly a familiar.
Daniel Spence	Dorchester man who buys virility oil and testifies against Maggie.
Goody Morris (elder)	Townswoman who testifies over a jest about her grandson’s curls.
Goodman Proctor & Martha Proctor	Father who defends Maggie’s treatment for bladder stones and daughter who claims the stones bore demon faces.
Goody Tanner	Barrister’s wife who accuses Maggie of cursing her coughing son.
Martha Wheeler	Witch-finder examiner who conducts the bodily search and applies the witch pricker.
Constable James Baldwin	Scottish constable who monitors Maggie overnight and testifies about it.
Constable Johnson	Hostile constable who claims Maggie cursed him with nightmares.
Salty	Town drunkard who shares the cage wagon with Maggie on the journey to jail.
Lady Wembly & Lord Wembly	Kent nobility whose abuse of Maggie’s tincture and subsequent murder and suicide forced the couple to flee England.
Mistress Molly	Tortoiseshell cat that arrives on Bess’s birthday and stays with Maggie through jail.
Constance Wells	Maggie’s firstborn daughter, raised near Reading and later brought to Maryland by Thomas.

Beneath the Surface: What the Novel Turns On

Theme	How the Book Presents It
Female autonomy and folk healing	Maggie’s herbal remedies, midwifery, and diagnostic skill are repeatedly reinterpreted by magistrates and neighbors as sorcery. Her success in treating patients becomes evidence against her.
Marriage as equal partnership	Thomas and Maggie share decisions, confess secrets, and exchange forgiveness. Their relationship differs from the patriarchal marriages around them.
Grief and maternal loss	Bess’s death from scarlatina leads Maggie to leave food offerings and speak to an unseen presence, behaviors later entered into the trial record.
Religious hypocrisy and institutional power	Winthrop, Dudley, and Endecott apply English witch-hunting methods and accept manufactured physical evidence while framing the proceedings as godly.
Scapegoating and community fear	Gossip from Goody Hall, Goody Weston, Goody Pierce, and others accumulates into a legal case built on personal grievance and unexplained misfortune.
Secrecy and hidden pasts	The couple’s assumed surname, Lady Wembly’s death, Thomas’s drugging, and Maggie’s firstborn daughter all surface during the trial and afterward.