Scarborough police are investigating the theft of a war marker from a 240-year-old grave at Black Point Cemetery.

The marker from the Society of Colonial Wars was removed from next to the headstone of John Fogg, who died on Oct. 12, 1778, at age 49. Fogg was a war veteran.

The stolen marker is a brass cross from the Society of Colonial Wars patterned after the “Louisbourg Cross,” a trophy of the 1745 colonial forces expedition to and capture of Fortress Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, according to the website findagrave.com.

Robert Hall, a trustee of Black Point Cemetery, said his neighbor discovered the marker was missing during the Memorial Day weekend.

Hall went to the cemetery and found a hole in the ground where the marker had been pulled up. He reported the theft to Scarborough police.

“It’s sad that someone would lower themselves to steal from a cemetery,” said Hall, who photographed Fogg’s gravestone and brass cross for Find a Grave. The headstone also marks the burial spot of John Fogg’s wife, Hannah, who died in 1790.

Hall said the brass cross is irreplaceable and he is hopeful that police can find the person who removed it.

Scarborough police posted a photograph of the brass marker on the department’s Facebook page and encouraged anyone with information about who stole it or where it is to call the anonymous crime tip hotline at 730-4386.

“So sad. To steal from the dead is one of the worst,” David Haskell wrote in a post on the department’s Facebook page.