Relics found in statue’s time capsule
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said he expected to find a “box full of dust” on Tuesday when city workers opened a rusty time capsule found inside a Confederate memorial statue that stood at Lake Eola Park for a century.
Instead, city officials found a trove of relics, including Confederate money, old newspapers, miniature Confederate flags and various documents associated with the United Daughters of the Confederacy, including minutes from a statewide annual conference in 1910.
“I’m surprised there’s so much that’s intact here,” Dyer said.
The city opened the metal box against the wishes of the United Daughters of the Confederacy’s Annie Coleman Chapter, which commissioned the statue known as “Johnny Reb” in 1911.
A member of the group in June sued in Orange County small-claims court demanding the capsule’s return.
“We believe that the city should have waited until
the courts decided who owns the time capsule and, essentially, I see it as stealing from elderly women,” said Justin Waters, an attorney for the UDC. He said the city did “irreparable damage” by opening the capsule.
Dyer said the city has not been served with the lawsuit, which records show is scheduled for a pre-trial conference in September. He said the city plans to donate the capsule’s contents to the Orange County Regional History Center.
“I think that’s the appropriate place and the next step for us,” he said.
City officials also showed reporters an archived program from the statue’s unveiling in 1911 that said the monument was presented to the city, which accepted “care and custody” of it.
Surrounded by television cameras inside a studio at City Hall, the city’s locksmiths, Richard Grabe and Brian Haines, carefully drilled into the metal box early Tuesday, after having earlier determined the lock mechanism had deteriorated too much to use a key.
“Of course, with the historical significance of the box, they didn’t want me to do any damage,” which ruled out using cutting tools that could shoot sparks, Grabe said. “I’m going to have to make a series of drills and I will keep the damage minimal.”
Next, Richard Forbes, the city’s historic preservation officer, gingerly removed each item, one at a time: Confederate bills, including a $10 and a $50; miscellaneous UDC documents; a pair of Confederate flag cufflinks and some miniature rebel flags.
It appeared that a larger flag had deteriorated beyond repair. The box also showed signs of a possible insect infestation, Forbes said, though several newspapers survived intact.
The Feb. 9, 1911, edition of the South Florida Sentinel advertised a sale “larger and better than a circus,” as well as an upcoming series of dinner-and-dance events at the Hotel Altamonte, featuring an “old-fashioned Pennsylvania chicken-and-waffle supper.”
The box also held the Feb. 14, 1911, editions of the Daily Reporter-Star (an early predecessor of the Orlando Sentinel) and the Orange County Citizen.
“We will probably work with the history center at some point to archive this,” Forbes said. “Clearly, it’s very fragile, so we’re not going to be opening them up and reading them at this point.”
The statue known as “Johnny Reb” was originally erected in 1911 on Main Street — now Magnolia Avenue — before being moved in 1917 to Lake Eola Park. It was disassembled in June and moved to Greenwood Cemetery, where it will stand in the Confederate plot.
Dyer decided to move the statue in May, after former Orlando Sentinel journalist David Porter and others called for its removal from the city’s central park, arguing it and other Confederate relics are monuments to racism and white supremacy.
Supporters of the statue argue it honors fallen soldiers, not slavery.
Dyer said he had never before overseen the opening of a time capsule during his time as mayor. Nor had Grabe unlocked one. He said likely his oldest lock prior to Tuesday had been a 60-or-so-year-old safe.
“It’d be interesting to look through the newspapers and see what the coverage was of the day. We do know that they were excited about having chicken and waffles,” Dyer said. “We’re having chicken and waffles again, in this decade.”