By Y.M. Lowy

On May 16, Rockland Daily launched its “Unearthing the Past” series with the remarkable story of Monsey’s historic time capsule, opened during a major 1976 Bicentennial ceremony attended by crowds of residents, historians, and local leaders. This week, we go way back to where the story first began, exploring who came up with the unusual idea in 1876 and how Monsey residents gathered to bury a message for future generations beneath Haring’s Grove.

America was in a jubilant mood in the year 1876. The nation had reached its 100th year since independence, marking a full century since the founding of the United States.

The road to that milestone had not been smooth. During its first hundred years, the young country endured fierce political divisions, internal conflict, and deep uncertainty about whether the American experiment could even survive. European skeptics viewed the new republic with doubt, questioning how a nation founded by inexperienced revolutionaries and made up of separate colonies and many different peoples could possibly endure for long.

Reaching the Centennial- 100 year anniversary- was therefore seen as a major triumph, and celebrations were held across the country.

In the small hamlet of Monsey in Rockland County, where parts of the Revolutionary War had once unfolded, residents decided they wanted to mark the historic occasion in a unique and lasting way.

Even at that early stage, Monsey was already developing into a thriving community of roughly 500 residents with a growing local economy. The town included several industries, among them a straw hat factory and a number of other small businesses.

The driving force behind Monsey’s unusual Centennial project was Levi Sherwood, the town’s unofficial leader and one of the most influential local figures of the era. (More about Mr. Sherwood will appear in a future installment of this series.)

Sherwood proposed an idea that was remarkably ambitious for its time: to bury a time capsule filled with documents, objects, and memorabilia from daily life in Monsey and leave it hidden underground for a full century.

His hope was that when America would one day celebrate its Bicentennial in 1976, future residents of Monsey would dig up the buried treasure and discover how their predecessors had lived a hundred years earlier.

In preparation for the event, a series of planning meetings were held on the second floor above Sherwood’s store, located in the building beside what is today Rockland Kosher Supermarket, a structure that still stands today.

On April 15, 1876, Monsey residents gathered at “Haring’s Grove,” a large grassy field located near the present-day corner of Grove Street and Saddle River Road, beside where the Monsey Fire Department now stands.

The property belonged to Samuel Haring, a prominent Monsey attorney. At the time, the field served as the central gathering place for official ceremonies, public meetings, and parades in the community. Years later, the nearby roadway running alongside the property would become known as Grove Street.

Among those attending were veterans of the War of 1812, the second major war fought between the United States and Great Britain after the American Revolution.

The celebration began at 7:00 a.m. with the firing of thirteen cannon blasts in honor of the original thirteen colonies. 

Later that afternoon, at 1:30 p.m., residents participated in a ceremonial march accompanied by patriotic speeches and festivities. Following a short parade, Monsey’s leading community figures gathered to bury the time capsule in the ground.

An elm tree was then planted directly above the buried capsule to serve as a living marker and symbolic guardian over the hidden treasure for the next hundred years.

Ironically, the original tree never survived long enough to witness the capsule’s reopening. During the 1960s, the devastating Dutch elm disease epidemic destroyed millions of elm trees across America, including Monsey’s historic Centennial tree.

The tree standing at the site today is instead a maple tree, planted during a special ceremony in 1972 by descendants of the very families who had planted the original elm nearly a century earlier.

And so, beneath a quiet corner of Monsey, history was carefully placed into the ground, waiting for the future to return.

Rockland Daily’s “Unearthing the Past” series will continue exploring the people, places, memories, and hidden stories connected to Monsey’s historic time capsule, preserving the history that helped shape Monsey into the town it is today. As 2026 marks 50 years since the 1976 reopening, Monsey is once again drawing closer to revisiting that historic moment.