Grave Marker for New Hampshire's Only Convicted Witch
40 Park Avenue (Tuck Field, near Tuck Museum), Hampton, NH 03842
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access to the memorial stone in Tuck Field.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Grass and paved walkway in a town park
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1963 · Colonial Witch Trials · New Hampshire History · Public Memorial
Eunice Cole arrived in Hampton, New Hampshire, with her husband William in the 1640s. Her trials for witchcraft began in 1656, when neighbors accused her of killing livestock, transforming into animals, and consorting with the devil. The colonial court convicted her, ordered her whipped, and imprisoned her in Boston. She was tried again in 1671 and 1673, spending most of the intervening years incarcerated.
Cole was never executed. She was found dead in a shed in 1680. The historical record on her burial is incomplete; oral tradition holds that townspeople buried her in a shallow grave near her property and that a stake was driven through the body to prevent her return, a folk practice documented in seventeenth-century English and colonial accounts of suspected witchcraft.
In 1938, on the 300th anniversary of Hampton's founding, the town symbolically restored Cole's citizenship and burned a paper copy of the original conviction. In 1963 the Hampton Historical Society placed an unmarked boulder in Tuck Field, near the Tuck Museum, as a memorial to her contested burial. The marker remained nameless for half a century.
In August 2013, a black marble plaque bearing Cole's name was added to the boulder. The plate was purchased by Dover-area musician Robert McClung, who grew up nearby and considered it an injustice that the memorial bore no name. The dedication coincided with Hampton's 375th anniversary observances.
Sources
The folklore around Eunice Cole's death is older than her memorial. Seventeenth-century New England communities sometimes performed apotropaic burial practices on the bodies of suspected witches, and oral tradition in Hampton holds that Cole received this treatment, with a stake driven through her chest and a horseshoe placed nearby to prevent her from rising. The actual location of her grave was never recorded.
The Hampton Historical Society's placement of the boulder in 1963 was framed in town newspapers at the time as a gesture of conscience. The 375th-anniversary plaque dedication in 2013 included readings from descendants of Cole's accusers and from local historians who have spent decades reframing her story as a record of colonial scapegoating rather than supernatural threat.
Reports of paranormal activity at the memorial itself are sparse and largely anecdotal. The site functions more as a historical pilgrimage point than as an active investigation location. Visitors leave small stones, coins, and occasional flowers at the base of the boulder.
Notable Entities
A boulder placed in 1963 marks the symbolic resting place of Eunice 'Goody' Cole, the only person convicted of witchcraft in New Hampshire history. A black marble plaque added in 2013 gives the memorial her name for the first time.
The adjacent Tuck Museum, operated by the Hampton Historical Society, holds local archives related to Cole's trials and exoneration.
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