The contents of cornerstone boxes rarely see the light of day again by those who seal them away, but as local history unwinds, long-buried relics occasionally surface. The First Congregational Church in Norwood maintains a rich historical collection—housed in its own dedicated museum room—that features remarkable artifacts, including mid-17th-century cufflinks worn by Ebenezer Dean, a mantel from the parsonage built for the church’s first minister, the Rev. Thomas Balch, and a massive Bible given by George Everett to his brother Francis in 1860.
Among the collection is a small, corroded metal cornerstone box salvaged when the denomination’s fourth church building was demolished in 1961 at the site now occupied by the Walpole Street medical office building next to the public library. That box contained a modest assortment of a small Bible and historical church records. In contrast, when the congregation laid a copper cornerstone box in 1960 for its sprawling modern brick complex at Winter and Walpole streets, it stashed away a far more imaginative and varied trove. Alongside traditional items—such as a Bible, hymnal, parish roster, and a 1960 Easter sermon by the Rev. Allen Keedy—the box preserved intimate snapshots of the minister and the congregation’s longest-standing parishioner, a group photo of the church school staff, and a picture of a Chinese boy adopted by the Senior Pilgrim Fellowship in 1959.
The collection also preserves a 20-year anniversary booklet published in 1930 for Boy Scout Troop 42, which originally held the distinction of being Troop 1 as the oldest continuously operating Scout troop in the country under the same sponsorship, founded in part by church minister Rev. Arthur H. Pingree, a pioneer of American Scouting. Mary Hemman, caretaker of the church historical room, cataloged these contents in response to an inventory initiative launched by the Norwood Historical Commission under Chairman Theodore A. Curtin. Curtin announced that the commission’s town-wide search for cornerstone boxes, time capsules, and local archives will ramp up following Labor Day, with letters scheduled to be sent to local churches, fraternal lodges, veterans organizations, and commercial property owners to gather repositories of local history for town files and state archives. (Reporting by Barry N. Smith, The Patriot Ledger).
Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger
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We haven’t been able to find Part I of this series yet, but Part II might be an interesting ready anyway.
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