For 65 years, South Jersey’s famous White Horse statue was a beloved landmark. Last month, it vanished.

Neil Pastore couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The horse was gone.

Not a real horse mind you, but an iconic piece of South Jersey road decor: the towering White Horse that has stood silent watch over a stretch of the White Horse Pike near Hammonton for 65 years. An instantly recognizable midway point for generations of Shore travelers. A proud symbol of an agricultural community. A storied statue that had weathered storms and braved vandalism.

It was April Fool’s. But Jennifer Pastore assured her older brother that it was no joke.

“The White Horse is gone,” she said.

Neil Pastore hurried to White Horse Farms, the Winslow Township roadside market his family had recently purchased and where the horse had so long been a fixture. But now only shards of the hoofs and splintered legs remained atop the pedestal. Perhaps the statue had been damaged in the previous night’s heavy storms, Pastore thought. But there were no signs of the White Horse in the tall grass. Then, Pastore found one of the horse’s fractured legs, made of heavy wood, in the shrubs. Hefting it, he knew the White Horse didn’t simply blow away.

“That’s when we realized this wasn’t any accident,” he said.

Security camera footage solved any mystery. Overnight, four teens hopped out of a pickup in the darkness. First, they tried pushing. The White Horse stood. Next, they used strapping and a winch, snapping the White Horse off at the legs. They loaded the landmark into the truck bed and were gone. The crime took 12 minutes.

Sgt. John Ervin of the Winslow Township Police said investigators believe the teens, all high school seniors, stole the White Horse as part of a prank or a scavenger hunt, and then threw its broken parts into a pond or lake in a nearby township. It has not been recovered. As part of an agreement worked out with the Pastores, Ervin said the teens, who were caught within days, will not be charged criminally — as long as they stay out of trouble and help pay for a new White Horse.

Initially, the Pastores decided against publicizing the theft.

“Kids do stupid things,” Neil Pastore said with a sigh, not wanting anyone’s future ruined over a wooden horse, especially since it feels like nearly everyone in Hammonton can share a childhood story of some horseplay at the White Horse. “It took 65 years for them to destroy it, though. That’s the disappointing part.”

Still, the jarring sight of the White Horse’s twisted remains now greet travelers along the pike. Whether at the counter of the Silver Coin Diner in town, or in posts on the local Facebook community page, Hammontians wanted to know: “What the heck happened to the White Horse?”

Long touted as the “Blueberry Capital of the World,” Hammonton was incorporated in 1866. The Pastores, fourth-generation farmers and owners of nearby Pastore Orchards, go back nearly that far. All to say, they had a good name to protect.

“We DID NOT take down the White Horse,” wrote Neil Pastore in a Facebook post late last month, informing residents of the statue’s theft and destruction. He reassured neighbors that they planned on replacing it.

In fact, the Pastores say they intended to refurbish the aging landmark before it was stolen by the teens, thinking it could make a cool restoration project for local art students. Now, they are searching the internet for a replacement.

It was Joanne Wiessner, 78, the daughter of the original owners of White Horse Farms, who first spotted the empty stump from her kitchen window on April 1.

In recent years, under White Horse Farm’s previous owners, the White Horse’s red wooden perch had fallen into disrepair. Wiessner made it her daily habit to peek out across the pike to see if the White Horse was still standing. Then, one morning it was gone.

“Honest to God, it was very upsetting, very disturbing,” said Wiessner, who was 14 when her father, Joseph Battaglia, bought the statue in 1958. “Tell you the truth, it was like another family member.”

Joseph Battaglia had purchased the wooden statue, about the size of a real horse, during a weekend antiquing trip to Pennsylvania Dutch Country with his wife, Anna. The couple, who operated the farm together from 1949 to 1999, figured it would be a fun way to set the family farm stand apart from the abundance of roadside markets then dotting the White Horse Pike.

Battaglia cleared a spot set back from the road. He built a brick foundation and planted marigolds. Soon, he snapped photos for customers and passersby wanting to pose by the White Horse, and sold postcards. In time, the White Horse was another familiar landmark along a 60-mile strip chock full of them, including the giant Renault Wine Bottle, and the huge Ideal clothing store sign.

When it needed whitewashing, Battaglia removed the White Horse from its pedestal with a forklift and added a fresh coat. But no matter how high Battaglia raised the pedestal, people still had their fun with the White Horse. Over the years, pranksters painted the White Horse with polka dots and stripes — and once painted the wooden stallion’s undercarriage red (“They painted its personals,” Wiessner whispered).

Less humorously, vandals snipped the White Horse’s tail, so often that Battaglia gave up trying to replace the original horse hair.

When the Battaglia family sold White Horse Farms after Joseph died in 2001, the new owners used the farm more for wholesale. The roadside crowds dwindled. Many days, it could feel like the only visitors were the county cops who used the parking lot as a turnaround spot (White Horse Farms straddles the borders of Camden and Atlantic Counties.)

Still, its sudden departure has stirred a certain amount of nostalgia, and yes, even a sense of loss in Hammonton.

That’s because everything, even roadside landmarks, mean more when they’re gone, said Gabriel Donio, publisher and columnist for the Hammonton Gazette, who saw the White Horse’s destruction as news fit to print.

Every community has its icons, Donio said.

“It was emblematic of a pride of a place,” he said.

For his part, Pastore said he gets that pride. After all, his great-grandparents, Frank and Michelina Pastore, began growing blueberries on 25 acres in 1906. Now, the Pastores tend 500 acres. He hopes to find a replacement near to the original statue.

“Something where if you’re driving by at 50 mph, you’re not going to notice it’s not the same White Horse,” he said.