Box was in cornerstone, but which one?

Central-city church in quest for time capsule from 1864

2/28/2011
BY JC REINDL
BLADE STAFF WRITER
  • Capsule-2

    Charles Allen, 81, visits the former church on Norwood Avenue.

    THE BLADE/LISA DUTTON
    Buy This Image

    • Darrell Paterson of Spartan Construction replaces the cornerstone of Warren AME Church on Collingwood Boulevard. The time capsule from 1864 was not behind the stone.
    Darrell Paterson of Spartan Construction replaces the cornerstone of Warren AME Church on Collingwood Boulevard. The time capsule from 1864 was not behind the stone.
    While the din of snowblowers echoed across the region late last week, another loud buzzing was heard outside Warren AME Church in central Toledo.

    It wasn't the sound of digging through snow but an attempt to uncover history at the oldest African-American church in northwest Ohio, founded in 1847.

    A masonry cutter maneuvered the edge of his diamond-bladed saw around the church's cornerstone.

    Although the cornerstone dates to only 1993, church leaders hoped to find behind it a wooden-box time capsule from 1864 said to contain numerous historical documents, a rare coin, and papers of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who spoke in Toledo the week the box was sealed.

    The Aug. 2, 1864, edition of The Blade tells how the box was buried beneath the cornerstone of the church's then-new downtown building between Monroe and Washington streets, along the Miami and Erie Canal.

    Now, 147 years later, the church isn't sure what happened to the box and its invaluable contents. In 1950, Warren AME moved from the now-demolished downtown church to 749 Norwood Ave., occupying the space of the former Norwood Avenue Church of Christ.

    The church moved to its current site, 915 Collingwood Blvd., in 1993.

    Charles Allen, 81, visits the former church on Norwood Avenue.
    Charles Allen, 81, visits the former church on Norwood Avenue.
    The Rev. Otis Gordon, Jr., learned this month of the 1864 time capsule from a Blade reporter doing research for Black History Month.

    Excited by the potential discovery, he and other church leaders opted to search for the box, looking first to the marker in their current building to see if it had been moved.

    Pastor Gordon and Charles Allen, 81, one of Warren AME's eldest members, stood and watched Friday as the cutter excised the stone near the front entrance.

    Flecks of brown dust scattered from the saw blade onto the freshly snow-covered ground.

    But what followed was the first of the morning's two letdowns.

    "Nothing there," Mr. Allen said at the moment the stone was removed to reveal blue insulation.

    So the two men drove a mile to Warren AME's previous building on Norwood Avenue, which is now vacant. Mr. Allen recalled how the church installed a rededicated cornerstone into a side of the building. He also thought he remembered that cornerstone being accessible from an interior staircase.

    Workmen pause during construction of the church that was on Erie Street downtown. The congregation moved from it in 1950.
    Workmen pause during construction of the church that was on Erie Street downtown. The congregation moved from it in 1950.
    The 1950 stone was easy to spot. But it was about seven feet off the ground, firmly embedded in the red brick with no interior access.

    Disappointed but not deterred, Pastor Gordon said he plans to contact the building's owner and hopefully gain permission to remove this cornerstone and peek behind it.

    He also acknowledged that the time capsule could be lost to history.

    Warren AME's long-demolished 1864 building underwent structural changes after the city in 1895 filled in the canal to make Erie Street. The church completed a new front to the building in 1905, and it's unclear whether that addition would have obscured the cornerstone laid during Mr. Douglass' historic visit.

    Contact JC Reindl at: jcreindl@theblade.com or 419-724-6065.