Cecil to open time capsule Saturday
A time capsule was uncovered after 33 years below the floor of the public works building in Cecil. On Saturday, the contents will be unveiled at Cecil Park as part of a community celebration day.
The spot where a time capsule was encased for 33 years in the Cecil Township public works building.
CECIL – The rusted metal container wasn’t supposed to be opened for another 17 years.
The instructions on the box to open it in 2032 were corroded and illegible, and officials were scrambling to cobble together a way to celebrate Cecil moving forward while recognizing its past. So Cecil Township employees chinked away at a foot worth of concrete last Friday to reveal the 1981 time capsule buried beneath a corner of the public works building foundation.
On Saturday, the 34-year-old contents will be unveiled at Cecil Park as part of a community celebration day to take care of “old business and start new business,” according to tax collector Janet DeFelice, who helped organize the event.
“Part of the new business is a ‘burning the mortgage’ bonfire, where we’ll celebrate paying down $2.5 million over 15 years for the municipal building. The other new business will be new capsules that will be buried Saturday, too,” DeFelice said.
Jamie Bomberger is helping curate items for two capsules to be buried, one of which will be submitted by kindergarten students from Hills-Hendersonville Elementary. The other will be a hodgepodge of present-day artifacts.
“We’re looking for a restaurant to put in a menu, residents to provide pictures, letters – anything that’s going on right now. This is to bring together longtime and newer residents to see history and make new history for the future,” Bomberger said.
Most of the activities take place from 4 to 8 p.m., while some – such as the “Bake-it Batter” baking contest – take submissions as early as 1:30 p.m.
Cecil was celebrating its 200th birthday in July 1981, and according to an Observer-Reporter article the following year, stuffed into the capsule were artifacts such as church bulletins, football schedules, school lunch menus, a school yearbook, family pictures and business cards. Also according to the Feb. 13, 1982, article, the capsule was buried with now unreadable instructions to open it the week of July 11, 2032. Whoops.
“I’m terribly upset it was unearthed too early. It’s almost like something sacred. There was just some miscommunication as to when it was to be extracted. But I kept hearing about how there might be work going on near or around the public works building, so I thought, ‘that’s where the capsule is!’
“So when (Supervisors Chairman) Tom Casciola said he was organizing this community day party, I suggested this to be part of it,” said DeFelice, who was then the township manager cited in the newspaper clipping. Ray “Mook” Mitchell, a public works employee, had a pristine recollection of the capsule.
“Mook knew exactly where it was,” DeFelice said, “So he and others hammered away at it, because it was virtually encased in concrete in that 15-inch-deep pit,” she said. “The addition to the building over it made it almost impossible to remove.”
“The contents are in very good condition for being buried for 33-plus years and surviving the floodwaters of Hurricane Ivan. The interior of the capsule was completely dry,” said Darlene Barni, who snapped pictures of the excavation.
The capsule’s not the only history on the minds of Cecil officials. The board of supervisors gave the go-ahead Tuesday for Weavertown Environmental Group to provide pro bono work to build a protective structure over the old jail along C.I.C. Drive.
“This is the first step to getting it in restorable shape, then we’ll talk to the county, see what grants we can go after. But the aim is to restore it to its original look (from 1907) as the cots, the jail cells – they’re all original,” Casciola said. “And the ultimate goal is move it to the municipal grounds. We don’t have the space for people to view it where it is now, so we’re putting it somewhere near the park so people can see this piece of history.”
“Don Fuchs (of Weavertown Environmental) offered to do this out of the goodness of his heart and his pocket, so we should be thankful,” Supervisor Elizabeth Cowden said.