Graveyard statue's missing head mysteriously reappears after two decades

For more than two decades, a white, Italian marble statue of a young woman has stood headless over the Gray's Island Cemetery in Hillsborough, inspiring urban legends and ghost stories.

But this week, the century-old monument's long-lost head was there.

The return has puzzled the closest living relatives of the woman buried in the cemetery.

Jennie Steeves was the daughter of an aunt of Kathleen Wallace's father. Wallace recently saw a photograph of the monument on Facebook, which caught her by surprise.

"It showed the statue with the head beside it, that the head had been returned," she said.

The monument was built at the family gravesite, about 25 kilometres south of Moncton, in memory of Jennie.

Born in 1885, she was the daughter of Archie and Laura Steeves. With family connections overseas, she left for London at age 14 to continue her studies.

But Jennie fell ill, catching what her family believes was tuberculosis. She returned home to Hillsborough and died from the disease at age 15 in 1900. Her obituary described her as a girl with a "sweet disposition" and a "kind and gentle spirit."

In the 1930s, her mother, Laura Steeves, erected a grand monument for her only daughter, built from imported marble that arrived in the village by train. 

"It was very heavy, and they didn't really know how they were even going to get it over to the cemetery," Wallace said in an interview at her 19th-century farmhouse.

The cemetery on the edge of Hillsborough is where dozens of members of the Steeves family are buried. The name originates from a land grant issued to a Mr. Gray, on a large hill once surrounded by rising tidal waters — becoming an island.

After the construction of dikes, the graveyard became accessible at all hours along a long, dirt road leading far from the centre of the village.

Throughout time, the statue tucked into the far corner of the cemetery has compelled New Brunswickers and graveyard historians.

It appeared on websites for allegedly haunted places and inspired the myth of the Gray's Island Ghost. People claimed the eyes would follow visitors around the tombstones and turn red.