Ann Pudeator (pronounced Pud-e-tor) was the widow of Jacob Pudeator, and probably about seventy years of age.  The name is spelt variously, and was originally, as it is sometimes found, Poindexter.  She was a woman of property, owning two estates on the north line of the Common; that on which she lived comprised what is between Oliver and Winter Streets.  She was arrested and brought to examination on the 12th of May.  There is ground to conclude, from the tenor of the documents, that she was then discharged.  Some people in the town were determined to gratify their spleen against her, and procured her re-arrest.  The examination took place on the 2d of July, and she was then committed.  The evidence was, if possible, more frivolous and absurd than in other cases.  The girls acted their usual parts, giving, on this occasion, a particularly striking exhibition of the transmission of the diabolical virus out of themselves back into the witch by a touch of her body.  “Ann Putnam fell into a fit, and said Pudeator was commanded to take her by the wrist, and did; and said Putnam was well presently.  Mary Warren fell into two fits quickly, after one another; and both times was helped by said Pudeator’s taking her by the wrist.”

When well acted, this must have been one of the most impressive and effective of all the methods employed in these performances.  To see a young woman or girl suddenly struck down, speechless, pallid as in death; with muscles rigid, eyeballs fixed or rolled back in their sockets; the stiffened frame either wholly prostrate or drawn up into contorted attitudes and shapes, or vehemently convulsed with racking pains, or dropping with relaxed muscles into a lifeless lump; and to hear dread shrieks of delirious ravings,—­must have produced a truly frightful effect upon an excited and deluded assembly.  The constables and their assistants would go to the rescue, lift the body of the sufferer, and bear it in their arms towards the prisoner.  The magistrates and the crowd, hushed in the deepest silence, would watch with breathless awe the result of the experiment, while the officers slowly approached the accused, who, when they came near, would, in obedience to the order of the magistrates, hold out a hand, and touch the flesh of the afflicted one.  Instantly the spasms cease, the eyes open, color returns to the countenance, the limbs resume their position and functions, and life and intelligence are wholly restored.  The sufferer comes to herself, walks back, and takes her seat as well as ever.  The effect upon the accused person must have been confounding.  It is a wonder that it did not oftener break them down.  It sometimes did.  Poor Deliverance Hobbs, when the process was tried upon her, was wholly overcome, and passed from conscious and calmly asserted innocence to a helpless abandonment of reason, conscience, and herself, exclaiming, “I am amazed!  I am amazed!” and assented afterwards to every charge brought against her, and said whatever she was told, or supposed they wished her to say.