Ann Pudeator (November 13, 1621 – , 1692) was a wealthy septuagenarian widow who was accused of and convicted of
witchcraft
Witchcraft is the use of Magic (supernatural), magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meanin ...
in the
Salem witch trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in Province of Massachusetts Bay, colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Not everyone wh ...
in
colonial Massachusetts
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
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Automobiles
* Col ...
. She was
executed
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...
by
hanging
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...
.
Personal life
Ann's maiden name is not known, nor the place of her birth. Thomas Greenslade was her first husband and they had five children (Thomas Jr., Ruth, John, Samuel, and James).
After Thomas' death in 1674, she was hired by Jacob Pudeator to nurse his alcoholic wife, who died in 1675. Ann then married Jacob in 1676. Jacob died in 1682, leaving Ann well-off.
Some have theorized that Ann Pudeator's likely occupation as a nurse and
midwife
A midwife (: midwives) is a health professional who cares for mothers and Infant, newborns around childbirth, a specialisation known as midwifery.
The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughou ...
, along with her being a woman of property, made her vulnerable to charges of witchcraft.
Witch trials
When she was accused of witchcraft, the inventory of Goody Pudeator's alleged misdeeds included:
* Presenting the Devil's Book to a girl and forcing her to sign it
* Bewitchment causing the death of a neighbor's wife
* Appearing in spectral form to afflicted girls
* Having
witchcraft
Witchcraft is the use of Magic (supernatural), magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meanin ...
materials in her home, which she claimed was grease for making soap
* Torturing with pins
* Causing a man to fall out of a tree
* Killing her own second husband and his first wife
* Turning herself into a bird and flying into her house
Many of these allegations were made by Mary Warren, one of the so-called "afflicted girls". Her other accusers were Ann Putnam Jr., John Best Sr., John Best Jr., and Samuel Pickworth. Ann Pudeator was tried and sentenced to death on , 1692, along with
Alice Parker
Alice Stuart Parker Pyle (December 16, 1925 – December 24, 2023), known professionally as Alice Parker, was an American composer, arranger, conductor and teacher.Dorcas Hoar, Mary Bradbury, and Mary Easty. She was hanged on Gallows Hill in Salem Town on . It is not known where she is buried, but a memorial stone for her exists at the Salem Witch Trials Memorial in Salem.
Ann's son Thomas testified against
George Burroughs
George Burroughs ( 1650August 19, 1692) was a non-ordained Puritan preacher who was the only minister executed for witchcraft during the course of the Salem witch trials. He is remembered especially for reciting the Lord's Prayer during his e ...
at his trial for witchcraft. George Burroughs was executed in August; Thomas testified after Burrough's hanging in a desperate effort to save his mother's life.
In October 1710, the General Court passed an act reversing the convictions of those for whom their families had pleaded, but Ann Pudeator was not among them.
Pudeator was exonerated in 1957 by the
Massachusetts General Court
The Massachusetts General Court, formally the General Court of Massachusetts, is the State legislature (United States), state legislature of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts located in the state capital of Boston. Th ...
, partly because of the efforts of Lee Greenslit, a Midwestern textbook publisher who learned about Pudeator's execution while researching his family origins.