History & local legend
Margaret Mattson was a Swedish immigrant living with her husband near the mouth of Crum Creek on the Delaware River. In the winter of 1683–84, accusations that she had bewitched neighbors’ livestock brought her before William Penn and a jury in Philadelphia. She became known in later retellings as the Witch of Ridley Creek, although deed research places her farm beside Crum Creek.
One witness, Annakey Coolin, described what happened after a calf died. Believing witchcraft was responsible, Coolin’s husband boiled its heart. Mattson allegedly entered, asked what they were cooking, and remarked that they should have boiled the bones instead. Mattson denied making the remark. Another witness relied on a rumor he had heard twenty years earlier.
Mattson, speaking through an interpreter, challenged the testimony as hearsay. The jury found that she had a reputation for witchcraft but acquitted her of the charge itself. She was released under a six-month good-behavior condition backed by a financial bond.
