King’s Chapel & Burying Ground

Although the original King's Chapel—a small wooden structure—was built in the 1680s, the present one was designed by America's first architect, Peter Harrison, in 1754. The church was built on a plot of land excised from the cemetery next door after a decree from King James II (restive Bostonians were reluctant to comply with his order that land be sold at a fair price so a church could be founded to foist Anglicanism on the colonies, so the cemetery land was the only option). The burial ground is the city's oldest; eminent Bostonians who've found their final resting place here include Mary Chilton, the first woman to step off the Mayflower; John Winthrop, former governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; and Elizabeth Pain, said to be the model for the persecuted Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.