FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. — The city of Fernandina Beach is trying to figure out whether someone’s ashes were put into its nearly 50-year-old “Peg Leg Pete” pirate statue on Centre Street.
Action News Jax told you earlier this week that the city’s Historic District Council was set to meet Thursday night to go over whether to recommend the pirate statue be replaced with a new one.
During the meeting, the city attorney said she found out from “reliable sources” that there may be cremated human remains inside the statue.
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
“It’s something I’m going to have to look into further because I do not know the answer to it,” said Teresa Prince, the city attorney for Fernandina Beach, “But I know enough to be concerned that there are remains in there.”
The city said the Peg Leg statue was first put up in 1978. Prince told the Historic District Council the wooden statue may have had remains put inside of it during the last time it was repaired, but if that’s true, it’s not something that the city would have approved.
“We sit on these benches, we eat down here and party all around this guy,” said Matthew Roberts, who has lived in Fernandina Beach for more than 30 years. “Now I’m just creeped out.”
Roberts told Action News Jax that even though the news is unnerving, he’s not quite sure it’s much more than made up.
“We get little things like that around here, creepy little hoaxes and things like that,” said Roberts.
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
Action News Jax reached out to the city attorney to ask which “reliable sources” told city leaders about the possibility of remains inside the pirate, but she wasn’t able to speak with us.
The city’s Historic District Council is pushing the conversation over whether to recommend replacing the statue to a future meeting as the city investigates. The council hasn’t shared which meeting it will bring this up again, but the next planned meeting is set to be held on September 18th.
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
