Masons pour a goblet of corn on the cornerstone as part of a ancient ceremony that was performed twice before in the 17 and 1800’s, Wednesday as a time capsule is returned to the cornerstone during a ceremony at the Statehouse steps in Boston. A a set of 2015 U.S. mint coins and a silver plaque added to its contents for a future generation to discover. (Joanne Rathe/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)
BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) — In an elaborate ceremony steeped in tradition, a time capsule dating to 1795 was returned Wednesday to the cornerstone of the Massachusetts Statehouse, with a set of 2015 U.S. mint coins and a silver plaque added to its contents for a future generation to discover.
A procession of freemasons marched up Beacon Hill as a fife and drum corps, clad in Colonial garb, played on the Statehouse lawn. Military units stood at attention and a 19-gun salute was fired, all part of an effort to approximate the historically documented atmosphere of July 4, 1795, when the newly built cornerstone was drawn by 15 white horses from Boston’s Old South Church, across Boston Common to the construction site for the new state capitol.
Kela Carnevale, 11, center left, and Tanzila Khan, 11, center right, students at the James Russell Lowell Elementary School in Watertown, wave flags during a ceremony where a time capsule was placed inside the cornerstone at the Statehouse in Boston, Wednesday. The capsule, containing artifacts including coins and documents was originally placed by then Gov. Samuel Adams and Paul Revere in 1795. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)
On that day, then-Gov. Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, then grand master of the Grand Lodge of Masons, presided over a ceremony in which the time capsule was first deposited into the cornerstone.
During Wednesday’s ceremony, Gov. Charlie Baker joked that Adams is today better known to many people as a beer-maker than as a key Revolutionary-era figure. But he said it was humbling to consider that the original capsule was placed just 15 years after Massachusetts adopted its constitution.
“What makes this time capsule so unusual is it’s not an interpretation from a historian, it’s not a passage in a textbook. It’s the story that our predecessors from that Revolutionary time wanted us to know and understand,” Baker said.
Members of the Grand Lodge of Masons of Massachusetts carry ceremonial instruments in procession to a ceremony where a time capsule was placed inside the cornerstone at the Statehouse in Boston, Wednesday. The capsule, containing artifacts including coins and documents, was originally placed by then Gov. Samuel Adams and Paul Revere in 1795. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)
The original container included an engraved silver plaque, a medal in honor of George Washington and a set of coins including one believed dated to the mid-1600s.
The capsule was removed in 1855 during construction of a new wing of the building. Its contents were transferred to a sturdier brass box, and new items, including coins and newspapers, were added. Rediscovered last year during a water filtration project, the box was gingerly excavated from the building and later opened by conservators at the Museum of Fine Arts.
The latest contents, not revealed until Wednesday’s ceremony, were a 2015 U.S. mint coin set — including dollar coins of Presidents Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson — and a silver plaque commemorating Wednesday’s event.
As was the case in 1855, the contents were placed in a new container, this one made of stainless steel with an oxygen-free interior to prevent deterioration.
From left, Secretary of the Commonweath William Francis Galvin, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt Gov Karyn Polito and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Masons Harvey Waugh peek into the crevice that will hold the time capsule dating to 1795 when it was revealed during a ceremony at the Statehouse steps, Wednesday, in Boston. A set of 2015 U.S. mint coins and a silver plaque were added to its contents for a future generation to discover. (Joanne Rathe/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)
Secretary of State William Galvin, who presided over the ceremony with Baker and Harvey Waugh, current grand master of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge of Masons, said it could be hundreds of years before the box is opened again, but when it is, “the history we made today will be fondly remembered.”
Groups of invited schoolchildren, wearing T-shirts that read “Time To Go Back,” watched the ceremony along with state workers and curious tourists.
A spokesman for Galvin’s office could not immediately provide a total cost for the ceremony, saying the expenses were spread among several state and Boston agencies. The audio-visual costs for the event were about $47,000, he said.
