Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
A time capsule sealed by American founding fathers Paul Revere and Samuel Adams over two centuries ago was opened Tuesday by officials at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
The capsule, according to the History Channel, was discovered by workers repairing a leak at the cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House last month, was a 10-pound brass box found to contain two dozen coins, five newspapers and a handful of other items.
Conservator Pamela Hatchfield and her colleagues also found a seal from the Massachusetts commonwealth and a title page from the commonwealth’s colony records within the container, according to Discovery.com. The contents, the website added, were not all that big of a surprise, as the time capsule had previously been extracted and opened in 1855.
At that time, the original cowhide capsule was replaced with the brass box, and new items, including coins from the 1800s, were added to the cache. It was then mortared into the State House cornerstone, where it was recovered during a seven hour process in December. The box was then transported to the museum, where it was X-rayed and examined.
Officials at the museum and the Massachusetts Archives opened it during a press conference on Tuesday, some 220 years after it was originally stashed for posterity. Among those on hand at the event were Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and other dignitaries, who media reports state witnessed as the screws were removed from the corners of the brass box.
The container, which had turned green with age, also included a series of tools, including a porcupine and a dental pick that belonged to Hatchfield’s grandfather, the History Channel said. It weighed 10 pounds and was slightly smaller than a cigar box (5.5 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches).
According to CNN.com, it took the museum staff more than an hour to remove all of the objects contained within the brass box. At the bottom of the container was an inscribed rectangular plate made of silver that was museum director Malcolm Rogers believes was made by Revere.
“Though we knew a little bit about what was in the box, it was a moment of extraordinary excitement as this brass container just the size of a cigar box was slowly opened with surgical precision, and you suddenly found yourself in the presence of history,” he said, adding that the inscribed silver plate “was the treasure at the end.”
Michael Comeau, executive director of the Massachusetts Archives, read the plate’s inscription to the crowd on hand. “This cornerstone of a building intended for the use of the legislative and executive branches of the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was laid by his Excellency Samuel Adams, Esquire, governor of the said Commonwealth,” he said.
Museum conservators will now work on preserving the contents, which the History Channel said will likely be put on display there later on this year. Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said that the capsule itself will eventually be returned to the building’s cornerstone, but noted that it is not certain if any new objects will be added to it beforehand.
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