Trinity Churchyard

Among the headstones around Trinity Church hide two of New York's most curious puzzles. Neither involves ghosts; both have something better: unanswered questions. This is also where you'll find the oldest carved gravestone in the city, that of Richard Churcher, a child who died in 1681.

1The grave of a woman who may never have existed

In the north churchyard there is a sandstone slab bearing one name: Charlotte Temple. She is the heroine of Susanna Rowson's novel «Charlotte, a Tale of Truth», published in the United States in 1794 and considered the country's first bestseller: a young English girl seduced by an officer who abandons her, pregnant, in New York. Rowson insisted the story was true and that her heroine was buried here. Trinity's own archives are doubtful: there is no proof. In 1829 someone wrote to a newspaper asking where the grave was, because they couldn't find it; by around 1855, the press was describing crowds weeping in front of it. In 2008 the slab was lifted, and no vault was found.

The slab is real; who lies beneath it, if anyone, remains a mystery.

2A message in code

Not far away, the headstone of James Leeson, who died in 1794, carries an inscription in pigpen cipher, a code of grids and dots associated with Freemasonry. According to a solution published in 1889, the message simply reads «Remember death», a common warning on gravestones of the period.

3What to look for

• The Charlotte Temple slab, with a rectangular recess filled with cement that may once have held a plaque.
• The geometric symbols on Leeson's headstone, which spell out the coded message.
• Richard Churcher's headstone, small and weathered, carved with symbols of death.