Westbrook police on Sunday were trying to figure out how a gravestone marking the death of a woman in the mid-19th century ended up in the middle of a city street.

The police department posted a photograph of the headstone on its Facebook page, adding that it may have been removed from the Old Baptist Cemetery on Hillside Street in Yarmouth. The Yarmouth location was based on a tip. Westbrook police said they are working with Yarmouth police to ensure the marker is returned to its rightful place.

“After extensive Google research, we’re unable to locate any further family or gravesite information,” the Facebook post states. “We would like to get this returned to its proper location/relatives.”

Police said the gravestone was found in the middle of Methodist Road on Sunday morning. It was turned in to the police department by a passer-by. The inscription on the marker reads, “Mrs. Mary, wife of David Pratt died Jan. 21, 1840.” Mary Pratt was 59 years old at the time of her death, according to the inscription.

Westbrook police are urging anyone with information about the gravestone to contact their dispatch center at 854-0644. Police promised to give the public an update once the mystery has been solved.

The grave marker was generating a lot of attention on Facebook. More than 50 people commented on the discovery and the post had been shared by 350 people.

A couple of people posted that they were able to locate Mary Pratt’s headstone on Find a Grave, a website owned by Ancestry.com that allows the public to search and add to an online database of cemetery records. The Find a Grave photograph of the headstone is slightly different from the marker found Sunday on Methodist Road. The Find a Grave tablet mentions both David and Mary Pratt and their dates of death.

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