WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) - Former Madison School Principal Roger Warren held up 100-year-old Wheeling Stogies cigars Oct. 1 at the school, and said you had to wonder just what went through the minds of Wheeling residents when they selected items for the school’s time capsule in 1916.
The time capsule - placed more than a century ago - was opened recently in preparation for Madison’s 100th birthday on Oct. 6. And Oct. 1 the items removed were shown to the public during a presentation in the school library.
“What do you think they were thinking?” Warren asked those attending. “Did they think we would want to light up to celebrate?”
One by one, Warren and teacher Twila Raper revealed the objects found in the time capsule. The cigars were among the most interesting to the crowd.
There were a lot of paper items, which stayed perfectly intact inside the lead capsule.
The largest artifacts were issues of the Wheeling Sunday News and Wheeling Register from June 25, 1916. This was the date of the school’s dedication, though it wouldn’t open to students until Oct. 6, 1916. The newspaper’s comic session was in front, and in color. At top was the Katzenjammer Kids comic strip.
A copy of the original contract for constructing the school building was placed in the capsule by the school building’s contractor, J.R. Batts and Sons. It listed the subcontractors involved with the work, and showed the total cost for the project at $90,014.
Many of the objects related to the Knights of Pythias, the fraternal organization responsible for placing the cornerstone in 1916. Some of today’s Knights of Pythias members turned out for the ceremony. Bill Hayes of Lodge 70 in Salem, West Virginia, explained it was common at that time for fraternal organizations to become involved in community projects “just to get their name out there.”
There was a sealed letter from G.R. Scatterday, who wrote he had been the janitor at the prior Madison School building since March 1895. He said he had been employed long enough to see students start school at Madison to then be teaching at the new school in 1816.
“I’m trusting the new Madison Schools will be as successful as in the past,” Scatterday stated.
Warren pointed out the perfect handwriting in the letter.
“I guess they taught penmanship then,” he said.
Charles Ahrens, a candidate for Wheeling city auditor in 1916, slipped in his campaign palm card.
Written on Madison School stationary was “A Brief History of Madison School,” which noted the original Madison School opened in 1866 at the corner of Maryland and North York streets.
One of the more perplexing items was a photo of the cornerstone of the former Bellaire City Building, and it proved to be nostalgic to Warren’s wife, Margaret Simpson-Warren.
On the cornerstone could be seen the names of Bellaire’s council members in 1902, and among them both of her great-grandfathers were listed - Clarence Simpson and J.H. Murray.
Both the former Bellaire City Building and Madison School had the same architect, and Margaret Warren speculated that could be the Bellaire connection to the project.
There were photos of unidentified babies, and a large number of coins. A 2-cent piece in the collection bore an 1864 date - the same year as the founding of the Knights of Pythias.
Warren also wondered what the people wore as they placed the items in the time capsule.
“Did they wear suits? Or they might have worn bib overalls,” he said. “We don’t know. Too bad there wasn’t a video from that day.”
Madison officials recorded the presentation on video on Oct. 1.
The time capsule had initially been set to be opened in front of the public on Oct. 1, but was instead opened on Sept. 29.
Teacher Barb Randolph, organizer for Madison School’s centennial celebration, explained those cutting the stone to prepare for the removal discovered the time capsule box was a lead one that was cemented into the wall. The box couldn’t be slid out, and since it was already cut the items had to be removed.
The time-capsule items will be placed in front Madison’s display case for now, Randolph said.
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Information from: The Intelligencer, https://www.theintelligencer.net
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