Bad Ends · STOP 09 · Downtown
The stone people call Hester Prynne's may belong to a woman the court found 'greatly negligent' in her child's death.
People say a slate in Boston's first burying ground, on Tremont Street, gave Hawthorne his Hester Prynne: Elizabeth Pain's stone, with a shield where some see a letter A. The city's own sign says there's no evidence. The colony's court records hold something harder, about a woman later writers say was her: a child's death, and twenty stripes of the whip. Find the stone and decide.
This is stop 9 of Bad Ends. Walk it - any two stops are free.
The plate
Collected on site
Tremont Street at School Street, next to King's Chapel (58 Tremont St)
Directions
Her carved age is a fight. The photo caption on HMdb reads 'aged near 32,' while the city marker's own dates, 1652 to 1704, make her 52.
More footnotes on the story card, in the app.
Argue about it
Is this Hester Prynne's grave?
Both sides, with their sources, are on the story card in the app.
In these collections: Legends Busted, Crime Scenes
Near Government Center · Near State · Near Downtown Crossing · Near Park Street · Near Bowdoin · Near Haymarket
Sources (7)
- Welcome to King's Chapel Burying Ground (marker)HMdb.org, marker 18979 · photos 2009
- King's Chapel Burying GroundCity of Boston Parks and Recreation · accessed 2026-10-11
- Nathaniel HawthorneKing's Chapel · accessed 2026-10-11
- Life and Death in Colonial Boston (marker)HMdb.org, marker 18984 (city marker in King's Chapel Burying Ground) · photos 2009
- Almost Famous - Pain, Prynne, and Slategeologywriter.com
- Elizabeth PainWikipedia · accessed 2026-10-11
- Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1630-1692, vol. 1John Noble and John F. Cronin, eds.; County of Suffolk · 1901