Time capsule gives look at 1950s Beacon

Box was buried under bank floor

By Maeleeke J. Lavan
Poughkeepsie Journal

BEACON -- There was no money inside but a box lifted from beneath the floor of the former Beacon Savings Bank contained treasure nonetheless.

The copper-colored rectangular box -- a time capsule -- was opened Monday at the Howland Cultural Center. It had been buried since 1956.

About 50 local residents attending the ceremony oohed and aahed as they recognized businesses and people commemorated in pamphlets and photos.

''It was wonderful working in those days,'' said Pauline Thompson, a former bank employee who remembered when the capsule was buried.

The box was buried beneath the floor of the former Beacon Savings Bank -- now Charter One Bank -- by former bank President Sherwood Robinson. It was opened two years later than anticipated because a new floor made it difficult to locate and recover it.

Box has photos, data

Old photographs of bank employees, school children and informational pamphlets on social security cards, mortgages and bank accounts for new brides are a few items that were inside.

For many, the items ignited memories.

''Our mortgage was with Beacon Savings Bank,'' Beacon resident Maggie Sullivan said.

Thompson, who was employed at the bank for 20 years, worked her way up to assistant to the bank president and was the bank's first woman officer. She said recalling her life and the way things were more than 30 years ago was interesting.

Ann MacLeod, another former employee, said the pure interest in history that prompted Sherwood Robinson to bury the capsule was reawakened in the audience members who came to the Howland Center.

''Mr. Robinson ... wanted it for history so people would see what history was like,'' MacLeod said. ''I think that's what people like. People have been so anxious and after me to open the capsule.''

Photographs of the first drive-through window at the bank drew chuckles from the audience. Gasps of surprise and remembrance could be heard as information was revealed on how to mail in cash deposits.

Along with changing times are changes in the way business is run in each community, MacLeod said.

''There's no longer a hometown bank,'' she said. ''All the big mergers happened ... and banks don't really have that community feeling anymore.''