Sealing time capsule will cap Corunna 200 celebrations

Organizers of Corunna’s celebration of its 200th anniversary of almost becoming Canada’s capital want to make sure contents of their time capsule will last half a century.

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A community committee that organized rededication of a St. George’s Square monument in May and a street festival in September plans its final event for Nov. 1, 11 am, at the Corunna Clock Tower on Lyndoch Street.

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Community history plaques and storyboards will be unveiled and the time capsule – to be opened in 50 years – symbolically sealed, said Corunna 200 chairperson Tracy Kingston.

The capsule won’t be buried, she said. Instead, it will be stored at the St. Clair Township office or Moore Museum.

Buried capsules can be hard to find when opening time comes, Kingston said. And their contents often don’t fare well.

One was found in the monument when it was repaired a few years ago “but most of the things in it were in pretty bad shape,” Kingston said.

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“This, I think is going to be indestructible” she said of the metal container made for the Corunna 200 committee by local firms, CIMS and McIntosh Mechanical Inc.

And the committee asked Moore Museum staff for advice on how to ensure documents and other capsule items survive for 50 years, Kingston said.

“On the front of it, we’ve put a decal that says why we made it and to open it in 50 years,” she added.

The special events were held this year on the 200th anniversary of a survey of the St. Clair Township community on the St. Clair River.

The surveyor was on a mission from the Crown in the early 1800s to find a capital for Upper and Lower Canada and it’s said Corunna was in the running. Worries about the proximity of the US, just across the river, scuttled that plan, but streets in the survey named for British officers serving under Sir John Moore at the battle of La Coruna in Spain in 1809 remain today.

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Kingston said the committee is still “gathering things” to put in the time capsule. They have copies of the township’s newsletter, The Beacon, photos, newspapers, coins, a township pin, a fire department shoulder patch, Corunna 200 commemorative items, and more.

New storyboards at the Corunna Clock Tower about the community’s history were provided by the St. Clair Heritage Committee, Kingston said.

“We’re created some memories for people,” she said of the well-attended Corunna 200 events.

Local officials and hundreds of schoolchildren took part in the memorial rededication, and a large crowd enjoyed the street festival that brought performers, family games and activities and vendors to a stretch of Lyndoch Street.

“People just loved it,” Kingston said. “It brought people together” and “reminded people about community.”

Kingston said she believes the events also “put the thought” in residents’ minds about the community’s past “and how interesting it is and how it shapes our future.”

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