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In 1795 , then - Massachusetts Gov. Samuel Adams , famed patriot Paul Revere and Col . William Scollay eat up a clock time capsule under the Massachusetts State House cornerstone in Boston , and now , after more than 200 years , its contents have been let out .
On Jan. 6 , officials from the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Museum of Fine Arts ( MFA ) in Boston cautiously excavated and opened the condensation .
The contents of a time capsule buried in 1795 by then-Massachusetts Gov. Samuel Adams, famed patriot Paul Revere and Col. William Scollay.
The time capsule hold silver and copper coins date stamp from 1652 to 1855 ( the capsule was opened in the decades pursue its burial in 1795 ) and a facile brass that expert believePaul Reverehimself engraved . The condensation also contained a copper medal describe George Washington , several newspaper publisher , an impression of the seal of the commonwealth and the title of respect page from the Massachusetts Colony Records . [ See photos of the time capsule and its contents ]
Thetime capsulewas last open in 1855 , when its contents were document and make clean , and extra item were reburied with it . The democracy has a lot of historic records that remark the sentence capsule , but its beingness was n’t confirmed until summer 2014 , when an engineering firm stumbled upon the capsule during a mental synthesis project at the statehouse . Engineers discovered the abridgment while usingground radarto survey the area .
In 1855 , the capsule was mortared into the bottom of a granite basis . In September 2014 , museum workers and engineers began plan how to safely polish off the artifacts .
On Dec. 11 , a squad of excavators , run by MFA curator Pam Hatchfield , spent 7 hours chipping out at the cornerstone with chisel , hammers and specialised drills to cautiously dig out out the time capsule . But before the squad could break through to the abridgment , they discovered five19th hundred silver coinsthat were ceremoniously set in plaster around the ejection seat when it was reburied . The shovel then reached the 10 - lb . ( 4.5 kg ) administration container and cautiously removed it .
The ejector seat was take to the MFA , where experts began the delicate task of open it . An initial ecstasy - ray scan uncover the outlines of the plaque , several of the coins and several rag of newspaper .
Conservators and engineers then removed superfluous plaster of Paris that was cohere to the brass case , and cleaned up the corrosion around the edge and the roll in the hay that had been keeping the abridgement locked shut .
The time capsule ’s content were reveal on Jan. 6 in a ceremonial opening that was attended by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick , Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin and MFA Director Malcolm Rogers . The abridgment and its depicted object will be on display briefly at the MFA before being reburied at the Massachusetts State House .
