Murphy – For almost a full century, rich pieces of local history lay sealed within a time capsule inside a brick cornerstone of Murphy First United Methodist Church.
Church leaders removed and presented the time capsule to the congregation on May 15, one week ahead of a centennial reunion celebration that drew about 300 people, including conference Bishop Ken Carter. The capsule contained items including a hymnal, Bible, lists of church and town officials, and newspapers such as the Cherokee Scout, Asheville Citizen-Times and Charlotte Observer.
Present-day items will be added to the contents of the metal box before it is sealed back inside the building’s cornerstone on July 24 – the anniversary of when it was first put there in 1922.
“It was an incredible milestone,” Pastor Wil Posey said. “It wasn’t really until we were pulling it out that it occurred to me, wow, how fortunate am I to get to be here at this sacred moment and milestone in the life of this congregation.
“Pulling the contents out and reading was so amazing to think that there were people standing on that ground 100 years ago and imagining that they were there raising their kids, singing hymns and celebrating communion. It was really kind of humbling.”
Charlene Smith is a member of the town council and has been part of the church’s history committee for about seven years. She said she has been preparing for the church’s centennial events for more than a year.
Part of Smith’s work included simply locating the time capsule within the building. She asked a friend to use his metal detector and he verified the presence of a metal object behind the brick of a cornerstone.
“We weren’t really sure (where it was), but once we confirmed the metal was there, we knew,” Smith said. “Then we re-read the old (Cherokee Scout) article, and we could see that’s exactly what they said they did. They put a galvanized metal box behind the cornerstone.”
Smith said it took about $35,000 to build the church at the time, which she said would equate to about $600,000 today. However, she noted that a building of that type would cost much more money to construct today due to the differences in cost of building materials. Even in 1922, funding the structure was a difficult task that required financial help from local residents.
“They were almost out of money and they were getting cranky letters from, I guess the Methodist conference had some sort of loaning agency within itself and ... they could not extend them any more courtesies,” Smith said. “That’s when, I guess, they had to reach out to the county, they summonsed people in Cherokee County and in the town of Murphy, for one day to give up a half of their earnings for the day and in that one day they collected $1,500. In our times that would be like $25,000.”
As for the time capsule itself, Smith said past church leaders did a good job of preserving their history by including multiple newspapers – such as the Observer, which contained world news from that time. The box also contained a Bible that was missing the books of Genesis and Exodus.
“Maybe we should just put the books of Genesis and Exodus back in there so it’s complete,” Smith said with a laugh.
Posey said church leaders are still in the process of deciding what sort of present-day contents to add to the box before its placed back inside the cornerstone of the church Sunday, July 24.
“We hope to show what kind of history has been made in the 100 years since that was placed in and kind of show what’s our character now,” he said. “We took a big photograph that was in the Scout, we’ll find a way to put that photo in there, and hopefully put some more personal things in.”
Posey praised the intentionality of the congregation that first built the church and the ways in which the community contributed to its construction. He wants the present-day church to continue to be a central part of the community, not only by its geographic location, but by the ways in which it serves the people who live here.
“They were deliberate in saying, ‘We really want to put this church in the heart of downtown,’ and there was also a lot of investment on the part of the town,” Posey said.
“The congregation and the building, the sanctuary, is a gift for the sake of Christ and the kingdom and this community, so we want to keep that in mind as we keep moving forward. We’re here in the heart of our community to be invested in our community and be a gift for Murphy.”