Contents of Masonic Capsule Revealed

Feb 14th, 2003

Mobile Register
By ROY HOFFMAN
Staff Reporter

A group of Masons gathered Thursday before the steel framework of what was the Masonic Temple on Bienville Square to witness the opening of a time capsule that had been hidden for a century behind the cornerstone of the 1902 building.

From Charles McDonald, a York Rite Bodies secretary wearing an ostrich-plumed "chapeau," to members from Masonic lodges throughout Mobile dressed in ceremonial aprons -- some stitched with the symbolic "all-seeing eye" and compass of the Masons -- the men pressed close to the oxidized metal box while George Ewert, director of the Museum of Mobile, pried at the lid with a black screwdriver.

Flanking the capsule were Masonic Past Masters Fred Clarke Jr., Ben Brooks Jr. and Brooks' son, City Councilman Ben Brooks III, who called himself "the son, grandson and great-grandson of Master Masons" and welcomed "brother Masons" to the event.

Then slowly, creakingly, the capsule was opened.

What was inside was not as colorful as the ceremony -- moldering books, rotting aprons, encrusted coins -- but the reaction, by some, was to feel that history was still alive.

"They say we're a secret society," said Charles McDonald, a splendid figure in his $650 ostrich-plumed hat, "but we're really a society with secrets. We have a history," he said, pointing to the opened box, "we need to display."

James Stuart, historian for Howard Lodge Masons, who sported a lapel pin for a half-century of membership, said that the time capsule's contents "prove we still hold the treasures of the past, and their value will never diminish."

Johnny Baker, a member of the Grand York Rite, noted the value, too -- "an intrinsic value," he explained -- bound up in notions of tradition and legacy.

Of the contents themselves, Baker admitted, looking over the objects laid out on a table: "They're in bad shape. It's a bit of a disappointment."

Indeed, as television cameras zoomed in for close-ups and reporters read over a list of items put in the box from a 1902 Mobile Register article -- distributed at the event by City of Mobile spokesperson Gina Gregory -- many tried to figure out what had best withstood Mobile's hot and humid test-of-time.

The newspapers in the capsule -- the Mobile Register, Item, and Herald -- were disintegrating. Yesteryear's bylaws and lodge proceedings were curled and faded. The badges -- among them a medallion of the 26th triennial conclave in Boston in 1895 -- showed decaying ribbons attached to tarnished metal. The coins, no doubt of increased monetary worth, were black.

The aprons looked like pieces of chewed string.

One of the artifacts that had, on first glance, seemed to hold up the best was an invitation to a theatrical event celebrating the Masonic Temple's birth.

After the laying of the cor nerstone on the morning of May 15, 1902, and its anointing with "the horn of plenty, the wine of health and the oil of peace," there had been a night concert at the Mobile Theater. The theater was lit by "850 incandescent lamps ... in red, blue, orange, crimson and white."

Little more than a century later -- on Feb. 13, 2003 -- all that was left of that incandescence was its memory, printed on a stiff paper card.

But it still enchanted one young woman, Lorrie Garrison, a senior at Murphy High School.

When Thursday's ceremony started, Garrison had been visiting Bienville Square with her Mobile history class, led by their teacher, Reba Cunningham. Intrigued by the Masonic goings-on, the class moseyed over to the event.

Garrison was immediately fascinated by the memorabilia, decrepit or not.

She picked up the invitation to the 1902 theatrical presentation and pored over the paper and script evoking a long-lost time.

"It brings the past back to life," she said with a note of wonderment.

Demolition crews tore down the Masonic Temple at 8 St. Joseph St. on Nov. 14, 2002, after it had sat empty since 1985, being brought low by Hurricane Georges in 1998, a fire in 2001 and Tropical Storm Isidore last September.

By the end of Thursday's event, the Masons had formally transferred the time-capsule artifacts to George Ewert of the City Museum, for eventual display.

Ewert explained that a period of "fumigation" would take place before preservation efforts could take place. "You never know what insects might come out of there," he said.