We found the man who carved this rock (and he still has the tools he used in 1972)

David Mills still remembers that sunny Saturday when he used his grandfather's hammer and chisel to carve his name and the date into a stone he found at his childhood home.

Now 61 years old and living in retirement in Vienna, Ont., just southeast of London, Mills was nine on May 13, 1972, when he left his mark on the natural world.

"I had been fascinated when I was a child looking at old tombstones when we would go to cemeteries and I decided for some reason that I wanted to carve something with my name that someone would find in the future.," Mills told CBC News.

Adam Flint was the person in the future who found the stone, with the year 1972 clearly marked on it, as well as the name David Mills 9 Y Old. Less clear is the date — Flint thought it said MOVED but Mills said it's May 13, with perhaps a D thrown in there to denote the word DAY.

Flint found the rock among a pile of free stones advertised on Facebook Marketplace in White Oaks — a medium young David Mills could not have imagined would exist 52 years in the future. He spoke to CBC News about getting it back to the original owner.

Several David Millses were crossed off his list. The right Mills was told about the CBC News story by a friend and he immediately knew what stone everyone was talking about.

When he sold his childhood home in 2022, Mills tried to find the stone. "I was disappointed because I tried to find it so I could take it with me, but I looked and looked and couldn't find it," he said.

How it ended up on a property in White Oaks is a mystery.

That chisel Mills used has a story of its own — it belonged to his grandfather, who came to Canada from Ukraine before the First World War. When he died in 1968 and relatives were diving up sentimental items, Mills went for the toolset.

"I was really into making go-carts and tree forts and that kind of thing, so I wanted the tools and I grabbed the set, and the chisel came with it."

Mills spent his life as an artist, and a potter, and eventually got into computer programming. He said he's looking forward to connecting with Flint so he can get the stone back.

"I cannot believe it when a friend sent me a CBC article with my name on it, and a picture of my stone. It was quite a surprise."

Flint, whose last name is a type of stone and who used to work as a field technician for archeological digs, said he wanted the original owner to have the stone.