Mike Spence, a construction supervisor with Team Henry Enterprises, with what appears to be the 1887 time capsule discovered on Dec. 17. (Photo by Patrick Lindsey)
The elusive Robert E. Lee monument time capsule, which construction crews unsuccessfully searched for on Sept. 9 after the statue’s removal, appears to have been unexpectedly discovered in another part of the 40-foot pedestal.
On the morning of Dec. 17, crews working to remove the northern center of the remaining pedestal about 10 feet off the ground uncovered a stone embedded in cemented aggregate that appeared different than the surrounding stones. After chipping away the masonry on top, a box lid, made of metal and measuring about 14-by-14 inches, was revealed.
While it would be thrilling to finally locate the capsule, its accidental discovery — like its mysterious contents — raises many more questions.
According to news reports, the box and its contents were set inside the Lee pedestal’s northeast corner in an elaborate ceremony in a driving rain on Oct. 27, 1887, in front of 25,000 spectators and Confederate veterans. The capsule was then “embedded in masonry,” sealed with a heavy stone measuring 48-by-48-by-24 inches, with the cap 18-inches deep.
The Richmond Masons collected and placed about 58 objects from 34 residents, organizations and businesses inside the capsule. Most of the items were fairly mundane Confederate and Southern ephemera, such as coins, bullets, a history of Monumental Church, maps of Richmond and Virginia, and newspapers reporting the history of the monument’s construction.
The box lid of what may be the 1887 time capsule, embedded in stone (Photo by Jay Paul)
However, what makes this time capsule an exception is that a Hanover school principal named Pattie Callis Leake donated a most perplexing artifact — a “picture of Lincoln lying in his coffin.”
If this picture is a genuine glass plate negative made while Lincoln’s body traveled from Washington to Springfield, Illinois, it could be worth, according to Warren-based photography curator Cliff Krainic, in the six figures. It would be only the second known photographic image of the deceased Lincoln (the other is in the Springfield Lincoln Museum).
But it could be one of several fakes that have appeared in recent years. It could also be a Currier & Ives print, sold by the thousands on city street corners after Lincoln’s death, or even the cover of the April 1865 Harper’s Magazine, which featured an engraving of the dead president.
Once the Masons placed the time capsule and the cornerstone on that rainy day in 1887, construction began on the massive 40-foot-high granite base, designed by French architect Paul Pujol and constructed by James Netherwood, a Richmond sculptor and quarryman. On May 29, 1890, the completed monument with the Jean Antonin Mercié-created bronze statue on top was unveiled.
Time capsules were standard in the Victorian era and frequently intended to last in perpetuity, which defeats the idea of a time capsule. In a 2015 story published in The Atlantic, Erik Rangno described time capsules as “vehicles for self-commemoration, a means to ensure that future anthropologists, scientists, and historians include us in the stories they tell … packaged to deliver the vicarious experience of having occupied a particular cultural moment.”
It wasn’t until the mid-1930s that time capsules set “open by” dates.
Considering the capsule was discovered in a different location than what was originally reported in the late 1800s, it is difficult to conjecture if the Lee Monument planners intended for the capsule to be found.
Two theories emerge. While the newspapers reported the capsule was placed in the northeast corner, per Masonic tradition it was not there. And it wasn’t the only mistake made by at least two newspapers in their coverage of this event: The printed dimensions of the cornerstone do not match the actual stones. The cap dimensions are incorrect, as is the distance the stone was set above the ground. Was this inaccurate reporting done intentionally to possibly mislead would-be thieves from stealing the capsule, robbing the graying Confederates of their self-commemorating “talisman?” Or did these anonymous reporters just get it wrong?
This writer has a theory that perhaps the time capsule was discretely moved during construction and placed in the north center of the pedestal, about 20 feet off the ground. Plans for the pedestal changed slightly after the setting of the foundation, so perhaps the original location was compromised by the change, necessitating a move to the center of the granite monolith, where only disassembly, such as the current removal of the pedestal by the state, could find it.
According to a press release from Gov. Ralph Northam’s office, once workers separate the box from the stone and it’s confirmed to be the 1887 time capsule, it will be turned over to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources for opening.
