How a Gravestone From Yarmouth Ended Up on a Road In Westbrook is a Mystery

The Westbrook Police Department said it best in their Facebook post: "Well this is a new one..."

For some unexplainable reason, a gravestone dated 1840 was found sitting in the middle of Methodist Road on Sunday morning, October 3 and Westbrook Police are trying to find out where it came from.

The gravestone is for Mary Pratt who was born in 1781 and passed in 1840 at the age of 59. Since it's been nearly 200 years since she died, trying to locate any of her descendants is a challenge.

One person on Facebook shared a link to a listing for Mary Pratt on Find a Grave which matches the information on the gravestone, but the photo of the gravestone in the Find a Grave listing doesn't match the one found by Westbrook Police. However, the listing does indicate that Mary Pratt was buried at the Old Baptist Cemetary on Hill Street in Yarmouth.

Now the big mystery is why was a gravestone from Yarmouth lying in the middle of a road in Westbrook?

Some theories from Facebook commenters say that the gravestone might be an older stone than the one shown on Find a Grave saying that when a spouse died in that era, often times the gravestone was replaced to memorialize both husband and wife. That could possibly explain how this could be in Westbrook, but for now, the gravestone of Mary Pratt remains a mystery.