The First Witch of Boston

The First Witch of Boston (2025) is a work of historical fiction that reimagines the life, trial, and death of Margaret Jones, the first woman executed for witchcraft in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It follows Margaret and her husband, Thomas, as Margaret’s work as an apothecary, herbalist, and midwife becomes an increasing liability for Margaret within their strict, devoutly religious Puritan society. The novel draws from the real-life Margaret Jones’ own journal entries in its recounting of Margaret and Thomas’s story. Additionally, it includes characters based on historical figures such as the governor John Winthrop, best known for his sermon “A Model of Christian Charity” (1838) and Anne Hutchinson, a noted critic of Puritanism who was exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy. The First Witch of Boston interrogates Hypocrisy and the Public Performance of Faith in Puritan Communities, Women’s Knowledge as a Threat to Patriarchy, and the challenges of Maintaining Relationships Under Public Scrutiny. 

This guide refers to the 2025 paperback edition by Lake Union Publishing.

Content Warning: This guide contains discussion of the source text’s depiction of sexual assault, child death, death, and gender discrimination. The source text contains sexually explicit content.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with the aftermath of Margaret’s hanging. Her husband Thomas, intending to move from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to Barbados, attempts to board a ship with his belongings and Margaret’s cat Molly. He hopes to remain unrecognized by the ship’s passengers, but when the vessel—still docked in the harbor—begins listing dangerously to one side for no discernable reason and someone identifies him as Margaret Jones’ husband, he is forced to disembark: The passengers, now aware of his identity, are sure that he too is capable of communion with the devil and has wrought his magic upon the ship. Unsure how to proceed, Thomas seeks shelter in the home of his only friends, Samuel and Alice Stratton.

The novel then flashes back to the beginning of Margaret’s troubles. Margaret, who has struggled for years to carry a pregnancy to term, finds that she is pregnant again. She has a feeling this time, however, that the child will live. Thomas is also cautiously optimistic. He, too, wants a baby. Margaret works as an apothecary, herbalist, and midwife, and Thomas is a carpenter. After a morning spent in bed with Margaret, he heads to the home of the Widow Hallett, who has commissioned a piece of furniture from him. The Widow Hallett is inappropriately flirtatious with Thomas, and in the coming weeks it becomes evident that she is romantically interested in him. She stops by his workshop unannounced and tries, unsuccessfully, to get Margaret to give her a spell to make her more appealing to men. Margaret explains that this would be witchcraft and that she is not a witch.

The Widow Hallett is not the pair’s only trouble, however. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was established as a haven for Puritan settlers fleeing England, and life there is characterized by extreme religiosity and strict societal rules. Margaret is viewed with suspicion in their community in part because her work is seen as adjacent to witchcraft and in part because she is assertive and outspoken. She does not conform to societal standards of gender and propriety, and she often incurs the ire of both their neighbors and the colony’s governors. As relatively new arrivals to the colony, Margaret and Thomas have few friends, and both are lonely. They are happy to receive a dinner invitation from Samuel and Alice Stratton, and the four find they have much in common. Unlike many of their neighbors, they enjoy having a few drinks every now and then, and they are all relatively open about how attracted they remain to their spouses. After the meal they all express gratitude for having found like-minded individuals in such a strict community.

Margaret’s pregnancy is uneventful this time, and she gives birth to a baby girl, Elizabeth, whom they call Bess. She and Thomas are both overjoyed to finally be parents, but Margaret’s difficulties overshadow their happiness. Their neighbors often criticize her outspoken personality. Thomas worries that her assertiveness in combination with her work as an apothecary and herbalist will get her labeled a witch by the community. Whispers have already begun about her, and some call her “cunning” and “the devil’s hand,” both insults that Thomas knows carry considerable danger.

Still, their neighbors continue to seek out her care. Some, like former governor Bellingham, come to her willingly and respect her knowledge, but others worry that the services she provides are not always in alignment with Puritan doctrine and represent an ungodly approach to healthcare. One of the men she treats for sexual dysfunction, in particular, frets that the salve she prescribed would garner judgment from clergy and the colony’s governors if they knew. Margaret also receives unwanted, negative attention for the ease with which she diagnoses patients and identifies early-stage pregnancies. Although she argues that she is just an astute observer of the physical body and knowledgeable about common ailments and illnesses, her neighbors begin to worry that she is able to predict the future because she is in communion with the devil and that worse, she diagnoses maladies that she herself causes in the form of curses.

The Widow Hallett tries and fails to get Margaret to prescribe an aphrodisiac for her, but manages to find one on her own. She doses Thomas with it and seduces him. He realizes quickly what has happened and is angry. He worries also that he has impregnated her and urges her to marry as quickly as possible. When Bess becomes ill with scarlatina and dies, Thomas is sure that her death is punishment for his sin. He deeply grieves Bess, but Margaret has a more troubling response: She is sure that Bess remains with her and speaks to her, even in front of their neighbors. People begin to gossip, citing Margaret’s ability to see spirits as further evidence of her ability to commune with the devil. When Margaret adopts a large cat, it is dubbed a “familiar” by many of her clients, and public sentiment against her mounts.

The Widow Hallett takes Thomas’s advice and marries Goodman Longfellow, a new pastor in the community. This puts her in a position of power, as clergymen hold a privileged position within Puritan society. She makes it clear to Thomas that she remains interested in a sexual relationship with him, and he worries both for himself and for Margaret. Should the Widow Hallett, now Goodwife Longfellow, choose, she could make life very difficult for them both. Margaret does not help matters by becoming increasingly outspoken. She openly criticizes everyone from their neighbors to community leaders and is viewed with increasing hostility in the colony.

Margaret is eventually formally accused of witchcraft and arrested. Thomas, too, is arrested, although the charges against him are dropped for lack of evidence. Margaret’s trial proceeds, and Thomas is chagrined to observe how often Margaret interrupts her accusers and those testifying against her. She is unwilling to be maligned by her former customers and neighbors and actively speaks out in her own defense, but Thomas knows that she would be better served by humility and silence. After a fraught few days, Margaret is found guilty. She is able to spend one last night with Thomas but then is hanged for witchcraft.

After Margaret’s death, Thomas finds a loose page in her journal. It tells a story he was not familiar with: Margaret was sexually assaulted as a teenage girl and gave birth to a child that was given up for adoption. Thomas vows to find this child and offer her his help. He travels back to England and locates the girl, named Constance, and offers to give her a home in Maryland, where he now lives, or provide her with enough gold that she might escape her cold, adoptive family and make her own way in the world. Constance chooses to accompany Thomas back to Maryland, and the two begin a new life together.