In the year 1677, a young man named Jon Stewart from Pollokshaws, a village near Paisley in Renfrew, found himself embroiled in the turbulent waves of Scotland's witch trials. At the cusp of adulthood, Jon stood apart from his peers due to the gravity of the accusations thrust upon him. Despite his relatively tender age, Jon had been living independently, a circumstance that elevated him from youthful innocence to the somber reality of adulthood in the eyes of the authorities. Jon's father, an under miller, granted the family a middling status within the community, which could have offered a veneer of protection, but in this era of suspicion, social standing often proved a feeble shield against the tide of fear and superstition.
Charged with maleficium, the practice of harmful magic, and attending witches' gatherings, Jon faced the grim prospects of a trial overwhelmingly biased against those accused of witchcraft. Tried on February 14th, 1677, in Renfrew, Jon's fate was sealed with a guilty verdict—a decision administered by a court that included both local adjudicators and officials sent from Edinburgh, thus underscoring the gravity of his case within the broader context of the witch trials. The presence of central authorities suggests that Jon's trial had resonance beyond the local level, marking it as a case of significant interest to the state.
The confessions extracted from Jon, on multiple occasions and recorded at the Tolbooth, inevitably played a crucial role in his conviction—a common occurrence in the trials of the time where confessions were often obtained under duress or torture. Jon was sentenced to the grim fate of execution by strangulation, followed by burning, a method reserved for those condemned of witchcraft, carried out on February 20th, 1677, at Gallow Green. His untimely demise at the age of 16, though possibly older according to the trial, marked a somber episode in the chapter of the Scottish witch trials, reflecting the pervasive fear and the harsh justice meted in an era caught between old beliefs and the dawning of modernity.