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caption:
Rotarians Marc Archambault, right, and Bob Fournier take the top piece off the Putnam Rotary Club's 25-year old time capsule. For the club's 100th anniversary, a new time capsule will be buried. More on pg. 4. Linda Lemmon photo.
captions, page 4:
Clockwise from top left:
It was very deep down
Marc Archambault secures a chain around the capsule.
Time capsule label
The cover before it was removed
Straps intertwined around tractor teeth helped.
Getting started with a pry bar
Time capsule, topside.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
As part of the celebration of the Putnam Rotary Club’s 100th anniversary, the club’s time capsule was dug up from its home in the flagpole garden in Rotary Park May 10.
The time capsule was interred 25 years ago, in celebration of the club’s 75th anniversary. Then an engraved concrete “cap” was placed over it.
The plan is to open the “freed” concrete time capsule and have club members look over the contents at an upcoming meeting. Few in the club remember what as placed there 25 years ago.
Some of the items may go to the Aspinock Historical Society of Putnam for display; items may be displayed at the club’s 100th anniversary Gala June 3; some of the old items may go into the new time capsule and, of course, new items will be placed in the new one.
The removal required shovels, pry bars, straps and chains, and finally, a small tractor. It took Rotarians Bob Fournier, Marc Archambault and Tracie Lombardy, more than an hour.
It wasn’t easy: the cap piece had more than a foot of concrete and concrete debris attached to the underside. And there was some serious digging to get to the time capsule (in an urn vault).
Archambault remarked to Fournier, “I’m so glad you brought that tractor.”
When the dirt crust was removed from the capsule there were no markings or plaques on it. It wasn’t until the crew was putting the soil back into the empty hole that they found the plated aluminum capsule plaque in the dirt pile. The goldish plaque says: "Putnam Rotary Club /75th Anniversary/ Encased Aug. 8, 1998"
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