According to the Bostonian Society which maintains the 1713-built Old Massachusetts State House, the rectangular copper box containing a variety of artifacts from 1901 was sealed inside one of two iconic statues - a lion and a unicorn - that have been a familiar site atop the Old State House for a couple of centuries.
The Bostonian Society didn't - or couldn't - fully divulge the 113-year-old time capsule's contents, explaining that "the process of extracting documents that are old and probably fragile will need to be slow and careful."
But a Boston Globe article from Feb. 24, 1901, detailed what went into the box, which the story predicted would "prove interesting when the box is opened many years hence."
According to the Globe, the box included the photographs and autographs of local statesmen such as Massachusetts Gov. Winthrop M. Crane and Boston Mayor Thomas Norton Hart, as well as news clippings of the day from several city newspapers and even a "letter to posterity from the reporters of the Boston Daily newspapers assigned to City Hall."
By Ruchi Singh
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
