From a remarkably well-sealed lead box that last saw light 117 years ago, Clermont County gave itself a present this weekend: its past.

        As the cornerstone of the county's Bicentennial celebration Saturday night, officials opened a time capsule encased since July 26, 1883 in a 300-pound block of limestone at the old county infirmary building in Batavia Township.

        Contents included gold and silver coins, commissioners' journal entries, a county directory, a handwritten history of the infirmary, business cards and various newspapers from that day.

        One advertisement offered steerage passage on a ship from Ireland to New York. The price: $21.

        Headlines from that morning's Cincinnati Enquirer heralded a reunion in Columbus of Civil War
veterans, labor strikes, a sluggish day on Wall Street, a swimmer lost over Niagara Falls, and a Cincinnati Red Stockings' 8-2 victory over Columbus in 10 innings.

        The next day's Enquirer included coverage of the capsule's burial, where “about 1,000 people assembled.”

        And what eventually came around is about to go around again.

        County officials will include one or two of the newfound items in a second time capsule, to be buried early next year near the county courthouse in Batavia and unearthed in 50 years — when today's schoolchildren will remember it.

        The inscription on the 1883 capsule had no “open date,” and it was long-forgotten until a maintenance worker found it recently. The county's 200th birthday, officials thought, was the perfect opportunity to look ahead by looking back.

        That day in 1883 was a big day for Isaac Leaf, a Civil War vet and Milford farmer who took part in the burial ceremony.

        “We knew he was involved in a lot of activities in the county,” Mr. Leaf's great-grandson, Mike Leaf, said Sunday.

        The younger Mr. Leaf, 46, lives on the same farm property as his great-grandfather, on the Union Township side.

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