TREMONT — The pre-Civil War headstone of Mary Norwood that was reported missing from a Bass Harbor workshop Monday has been found abandoned in East Blue Hill.

Accompanying the white marble headstone was an unsigned, typewritten note, carefully folded in plastic and pinned behind the marker. The note read: “This gravestone belongs in Southwest Harbor on Seal Cove Road. It was discovered in someone’s shop! Please see that it is returned to the Norwood family of Seal Cove Road. Thank you.”

John Clark Jr., a Bass Harbor carpenter, was repairing the headstone in his shop when it disappeared in early June, he said. He had taken the damaged stone from the grave site of the Seal Cove woman, who died Nov. 20, 1846.

Robin and Beth Clements, who live off the Jay Carter Road, found the headstone about two weeks ago propped up against a tree on a private dirt road that runs in front of their East Blue Hill home. After reading the note, Phil Norris, who also lives on the same road, telephoned any Norwoods he could find in the Southwest Harbor area to determine the marker’s origins and where it belonged.

Norris said he didn’t have much luck, but Wednesday received a call from Clark, who learned of Norris’ efforts to find the stone’s owners.

“What a relief,” said Clark, who reported the stone missing about four weeks after its disappearance. He said he waited until Monday to make the police report because he was hoping someone would return the stone.

Hancock County sheriff’s Deputy Corey Bagley was called to investigate the reported theft. Bagley could not be reached Wednesday.

Mary Norwood’s headstone stood on the edge of what had been the Norwood family farm on the Seal Cove Road near Norwood Ridge. Much of the remote farmland was turned into a gravel pit in the 1930s, but the wooded spot where the headstone stood was spared.

The headstone stood undisturbed on the edge of the field since before the Civil War, and two years before Tremont became a town.

The headstone’s appearance in East Blue Hill is a mystery to those who discovered the abandoned marker, which reads, “The relics of departed worth lie shrouded here in gloom, and here with aching hearts, we mark our own dear mother’s tomb.”

“It’s really a beautiful headstone,” Beth Clements said. “We’re very fond of her, but she belongs at the grave site.”

“It was just like finding a baby on your doorstep with a note that says `give me a good home,”‘ Robin Clements said. “She’s on her way back home.”

The headstone is at the Clements home until Clark picks it up.

Clark became interested in the headstone when his father told him of its whereabouts in the 1980s, said Clark, who visited the spot every now and again to check on the headstone’s condition. About 10 years ago, he had trouble locating the gravestone, which he later found broken under a decade’s worth of leaves and dirt.

Clark propped it up against a tree, where it stood for another 10 years until May 30, when the Bass Harbor man decided to repair the marker, which had broken off at ground level. With the town’s sesqicentennial just around the corner, Clark said he was feeling “Tremont spirit” and wanted to see the headstone again in one piece.

Clark said he plans to repair the stone and return it to the isolated wooded spot.