MONROE, CT — A time capsule was buried during a small ceremony held outside the Harmony Grange, at the corner of Routes 110 and 111, Tuesday evening. Two apple trees donated by Tom Sulier, a Grange member, are planted 20 feet apart and the capsule is now buried in the middle.
“The time capsule will leave a legacy for future generations,” Sulier said, adding the apple trees have a life expectancy of 100 years. “Many people will benefit from the fruit of these trees.”
The capsule contains a Bible, a miniature American flag, a book of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and ribbons from an Agricultural Fair. A memory stick contains a copy of the organization’s meeting minutes from 1889 to the early 1960s.
Members also wrote messages, which were sealed in envelopes and inserted into the capsule.
Connecticut State Grange President Robert Buck had suggested the capsule remain buried for 25 years, but members have yet to finalize the duration.
Betty Blackwell, president of the Harmony Grange, participated in the ceremony, along with her husband, Bob, Sulier and Pete Kinahan. It ended with everyone singing, “This Land is Your Land”.
Sulier bought the apple trees, a McIntosh and a Granny Smith, from Treeland Garden Center & Nursery in Bridgeport to replace sugar maple trees lost when roots were damaged during the installation of the roundabout.
“We have pictures of the trees planted when the Grange started,” Betty Blackwell said.
Harmony Grange members met at Monroe Congregational Church when the local chapter was established in 1889, before Ben Hurd donated its current facility in 1933. The white building with a pitched roof can be seen near the traffic circle on Shelton Road, and is accessed from Hurd Avenue.
The Grange was organized after the Civil War to educate and give farmers a meeting place, and to lobby legislators for farmers, who made up 90 percent of the population at the time, according to Ronald Bunovsky Sr., former president of Harmony Grange No. 92.
Coat Drive
Harmony Grange, 103 Hurd Ave., is having a coat drive to benefit families in need. Donations of new and used coats in good condition for all ages can be left in a box under the portico of the building’s front entrance from now and through the month of October.
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