What’s Inside the State House Time Capsule?

On 7 Aug 1855, workers were building an addition onto the Massachusetts State House and strengthening its foundation on Beacon Hill. They were surprised to find that the cornerstone in the building’s southeast corner  was damaged—and that something had been crudely cemented to it.

The workmen found “a few copper coins and two pieces of sheet lead loosely put together,” according to a Freemasons’ magazine. The silver plate laid down by Gov. Samuel Adams and Paul Revere in 1795 sat between those lead sheets, along with more coins. Those metal artifacts were “corroded with rust” but soon “restored to their original condition”—possibly with acid.

The managers of the construction projects quickly had the other side of the plate engraved with this text:

The Corner Stone of the Capitol having been removed in consequence of alterations and additions to the Building, The original deposit together with this inscription is replaced by the Most Worshipful Winslow Lewis, M.D., Grand Master and other Officers and Brethren of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, in the presence of His Excellency, Henry J. Gardner, Governor of the Commonwealth, on the 11th day of August, 1855, A. L. 5855.

Instead of simply laying that plate on the ground again, the state government commissioned a “securely prepared metal box hermetically sealed.” The term “time capsule” hadn’t been coined yet, but that’s what they were making. Inside they placed the silver plate, the copper coins, and…some other things.

Only four days passed between when workers discovered the 1795 plate and coins and when they placed those things back inside the State House walls. There was no big public ceremony because the site was then a construction zone—only government officials attended. The original cornerstone was replaced with a granite block on a new foundation, and the metal box was placed inside a “newly hammered granite ashlar” on top of that block. This was the time capsule recently rediscovered during another repair process.

So what, besides the artifacts from 1795, might be in that box? The Freemason’s Monthly Magazine reported in detail on the 1855 developments, and it listed the contents.

First, there were the coins from 1795, showing the transition from state to federal currency with the adoption of the new Constitution:

• “a Massachusetts cent, (commonly known as bearing an Indian on one side and an eagle on the other,) of the year 1787” [above]
• “another of the year 1788 two half cents of the same currency and bearing the same dates”
• “cents of the United States, coined in 1793, and 1794”
• “New Jersey cent (Nova Caesarea,) of the year 1787”
• “an old half penny of the time of George the Second”
• “a half dollar of the United States currency, 1795”
• “half dime of the same currency and year”
• “a pine tree shilling, of the currency established in Massachusetts in 1652”
• “a copy of the small medal struck in England in 1794 in honor of Washington, bearing the following on the obverse, head and bust of Washington in regimentals, with the legend.—‘George Washington, born in Virginia, Feb. 11, 1732,’ the parallel lines, ‘General of the American Armies 1776. Resigned 1783. President of the United States 1789.’” [below]

To which the statesmen of 1855 added:

• “The silver coins of the U. States currency of the present year”
• “copper cents and half cents of the last four years”
• “an impression of the State seal”
• “the title page to the first volume of the newly printed Massachusetts Colony Records”
• “morning papers of the day”

Sam Doran of Lexington found a newspaper article from 1855 snapping that Gov. Gardner, from the American or Know Nothing Party, had included “the Bee, the American Crusader, and two other Know Nothing sheets.” After all, this was the Massachusetts State House—there had to be a political complaint.

The time capsule was carefully removed by a Museum of Fine Arts preservation specialist, so soon we’ll know how accurate that list of objects is, and how well they’ve survived the last century and a half.