Samuel Wardwell

1643 - 1692  (49 years)

• Name	Samuel Wardwell  [1]
  Birth	16 May 1643	Exeter, Rockingham, New Hampshire   [2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  Death	22 Sep 1692	Salem, Essex, Massachusetts   [3, 4, 5]
  Person ID	I28459	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	3 May 2020

  
  

  Father	Thomas Wardwell,   b. Bef 31 Jan 1604   d. 10 Dec 1646, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts (Age > 42 years)
  Mother	Elizabeth
  Marriage	Bef 1632  [2]
  Family ID	F16987	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Sarah Hooper,   b. 7 Dec 1650, Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts d. Between 1703 and 19 Feb 1712, Andover, Essex, Massachusetts (Age 52 years)
  Marriage	9 Jan 1673	Andover, Essex, Massachusetts   [2, 3, 6]
  Children	1. Mercy Wardwell,   b. 3 Oct 1673, Andover, Essex, Massachusetts d. 16 Feb 1754, Andover, Essex, Massachusetts (Age 80 years)
  Family ID	F16981	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	3 May 2020

  
  

• Notes

  He was a carpenter by trade, and enjoyed telling fortunes to the town youth of Andover. He probably practiced some form of folk magic. On 22 Sep 1692, at Salem, he became the last man in America to be hung for witchcraft. From Wikipedia (accessed 3 May 2020): Samuel Wardwell was a man accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692. He was executed by hanging on September 22, 1692, along with Alice Parker, Martha Corey, Mary Eastey, Ann Pudeator, Mary Parker, Wilmot Redd, and Margaret Scott. Wardwell was born on May 16, 1643, to Thomas Wardwell and Elizabeth Woodruff in Boston, Massachusetts. His father had been a follower of John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson. Samuel's wife, Sarah, controlled a one hundred and eighty-eight-acre estate, which she had inherited from her first husband, Adam Hawkes, upon his death. The Province of Massachusetts Bay passed a law which provided attainder for "conjuration, witchcraft, and dealing with evil and wicked spirits", which meant the loss of civil, inheritance, and property rights of those accused. William Baker Jr., 14 years old, accused Samuel, Sarah, and their 19-year-old daughter Mercy Wardwell of witchcraft. All three confessed the very day they were interrogated. Samuel was executed at Proctor's Ledge in Salem after retracting a "forced" confession. Eventually his widow, Sarah Wardwell, was reprieved and released. In 1712, after Sarah died, their son, Samuel Wardwell Jr., was left destitute and later sued the Colony, winning some compensation for the family's ordeals.

  
  

• Sources

  [S4090] John M. Switlik, "Research in Progress: The Trials of the Wilson Family." The Essex Genealogist 34:155, Aug 2014. [S101] The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1-3 and The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes 1-7, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1996-2011. [S4095] Marjorie Wardwell Otten, "Sgt. Thomas Wardwell of Boston and Exeter and His Maine Descendants." The Maine Genealogist 18:147, 1996. [S4094] Hooper Genealogy by Charles Henry Pope and Thomas Hooper. Boston: Charles H. Pope, 1908. [S101] The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1-3 and The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes 1-7, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1996-2011., year and place only. [S4094] Hooper Genealogy by Charles Henry Pope and Thomas Hooper. Boston: Charles H. Pope, 1908., date only.