Another time capsule was discovered Wednesday in Richmond, Virginia, at the base of where a Jefferson Davis statue once stood as construction workers remove Confederate monuments from the city’s Monroe Park.
The container is believed to be a small copper box containing items considered important to the Confederacy, Masonic traditions, and Richmond history, as described in a newspaper article from 1896. The capsule was intended for a Confederate temple dedicated to the president of the Confederacy, Davis, that was never built. The city decided to create a statue of Davis instead in 1907, according to Christina Vida, a curator at the city’s Valentine museum.
“This is not just a local box. This is meant to be something that really represented the Confederacy,” Vida said, according to Virginia Public Media, the Virginia division of NPR.
The temple was supposed to be larger than the one dedicated to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in New York, Vida added.
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The 7-by-15-inch metal box was discovered by Dennis Duarte, a mason foreman for Connecticut-based company Summit Masonry.
The box, along with the statues, will be donated to the Black History Museum, according to a spokesperson for Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney. The container is currently being held by the city. It is not clear when the transfer will occur, though the box will be opened with the help of the Department of Historic Resources, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Items expected to be found in the box include the Guide to Richmond, Va. and the Battle-fields by Carlton McCarthy, a $100 Confederate note, the Daily Dispatch and Richmond Times newspapers, and a chip of marble from the front step of Davis’s mansion, as reported by the Richmond Daily Dispatch in 1896. Membership cards and a local Masonic directory are also expected to be found.
“These things are indicative of the Lost Cause mythology and how it had grown in the 30 years after the Civil War,” Vida said, according to the newspaper.
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The discovery marks the third time a capsule has been found in a Confederate statue in Richmond. Two time capsules were found at the base of a Robert E. Lee statue in December 2021, one of which was assessed to be more personal in nature and was left as a memento by those involved in the construction of the Lee statue. A fourth capsule is expected to be uncovered in a statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, as described in Civil War-era newspaper reports.
