Edgecomb selectmen weren't even sure the town should accept a cemetery tied to the Edgecomb Baptist Church on Old County Road.

Now it turns out, the town may own the church, according to selectmen.

The emerging title issue has not soured Russell Sirois' interest in buying the church, which a parent church, the Grace Baptist Church in Chelsea, had been trying to sell for a year. But with ownership unclear, Sirois, of Edgecomb, said he can't do anything until the town and the selling church sort it all out.

“I'm still very interested in purchasing the property, but I will not, I can't, put money into it without knowing it's a clean purchase,” Sirois said in a telephone interview on December 31. “No one should.”

Selectmen Jack Sarmanian and Stuart Smith said the board discussed the twist in the church situation at their December 30 meeting.

A title search appears to have found that the town bought the church around the 1860s, to give to a church organization, Smith wrote in a December 31 email response to questions from the Wiscasset Newspaper.

The property changed hands five or six times from one church group to the next, Smith writes. “(E)ach gave a deed and title to the next, except for one ... (T)his transfer was basically a handshake deal and a clear title was not transferred.”

The group that gave up the church in that deal, possibly around the turn of the 20th century, no longer exists, Smith states in the email. “(I)t appears that ... ownership ... goes back to the last organization that had a significant financial stake. The last entity to deal any money for the church was the Town of Edgecomb. Therefore, under Maine law, the church would revert back to the town.”

“This is all still up in the air,” Smith adds. “If any other information comes forward this could all change. (The board) agreed that it was not up to us, the town, to spend money and time on this issue.”

Instead, selectmen plan to wait for the selling church to sort it all out and offer any remedy for the town to consider, according to Smith's email.

Sarmanian, the board's chairman, said the title questions do not amount to any new development regarding the church's early November offer to give the town the cemetery. That offer hasn't really been on the table for a while, since the property attracted the potential buyer, he said December 31.

Lisa Kalloch has been the Grace Baptist Church’s real estate agent for the Edgecomb property. Reached December 31, she declined comment on questions about the title.