BURLINGTON - A mystery about two missing Mary Cummings Park signs has been solved.
The $3,000 wood signs had been posted for only a few days before they disappeared early last week, prompting supporters of the former estate to file a report with Burlington police.
It turns out the disappearance stemmed not from high school high jinks, supporters now say, but instead a fundamental disagreement about the status of the 200-plus-acre trust that straddles Burlington and Woburn.
The nonprofit group, Friends of Mary Cummings Park, had added the two signs to the entrances at Cambridge Road and South Bedford Street and Blanchard and Muller roads late last month, said Steven Keleti, the group's treasurer. The signs were part of the group's effort to make what it considers a park more visible.
Cummings, who died in 1927, left the land and an endowment in a trust in the care of the city of Boston. She wanted the land to be "forever open as a public pleasure ground," according to her will.
Boston, however, does not treat the land like a park, Keleti said. There is no mention of the estate by name on the city's website, and a spokeswoman for the mayor's office said she had never heard of the land.
Meanwhile, development has been proposed for the land and surrounding parcels, Keleti said.
The friends group was formed early this year as part of an attempt to preserve the land. Members have picked up trash and cleared trails.
The signs were their next step, which they hoped would remind passersby of the stretch of open land there.
But the signs disappeared on Dec. 4, Keleti said, sometime between 4 and 7 p.m., not exactly a typical time for vandals to strike.
On Monday, Keleti said the group learned that the city of Boston had removed the signs. The group was told, Keleti said, that the signs would be returned only if they were not to be reposted on the property.
Kytja Weir can be reached at kytja.weir@gmail.com.
