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.

The accusation targeted Samuel, Sarah, and their 19-year-old daughter Mercy Wardwell (named after her father's first love and the mother of her half brother, Thomas).

Legend has it that before his execution, Wardwell, in a final act of defiance, muttered a curse in Latin, vowing that all his descendants would be similarly "blessed" with short height.

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.