Erwin Cemetery Ornament Stolen

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Ornament Stolen from Erwin Cemetery.

A historic bird sculpture that has adorned a fountain in Erwin Cemetery in Springwater since the 1890s is missing.

Brian West, the cemetery association’s president, suspects it’s been stolen.

“I think it was stolen and sold as scrap and that’s what the Sheriff’s Department seems to think too,” said West, who filed a police report December 6 when he noticed the statue missing. “It’s very, very heavy, at least 200 or 300 pounds. It had to take a few people to move it.”

West said the iron statue must have been taken some time between Thanksgiving and December 5.

The statue, which topped a fountain, once gave the cemetery its name - Fountain Cemetery, before it was changed to Erwin Cemetery some time in the 1930s.

Investigator Josh Monster of the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office said that the investigation into the missing sculpture is ongoing and that at this point, it isn’t clear whether it was taken as a prank or with scrapping it in mind.

“It’s tough to tell right now,” said Monster. “It’s not something small, obviously it’s something that is very noticeable, it’s not something that someone can hide at their house.”

Monster said he’d seen other sculptures of birds with their wings folded in, but this particular one, with its wings spread wide, was a first.

“This one the wings are out, so that makes it about three or four feet wide,” he said. “I don’t know if someone did it for scrap or if someone did it for their own use.”

Though he doesn’t seem too optimistic — “I’m not holding out any hope of finding it,” - West asked anyone with information to get in touch with the Sheriff’s Office.

Investigator Monster urged the same.

“It’s just a sad thing when someone’s got to do something like this,” said West. “When the Sheriff’s Department came out they did a report and said they’d check scrap yards and everything, so we’ll see.”

The Sheriff’s Office can be reached by calling (585) 243-7100.