Upon This Rock…

Chapter One- A Treasure Beyond Price -2004

Three days…. I had just three days left to find what I had been searching for during the previous six weeks. I had spent many days researching through one hundred and fifty year old documents; reading each word over and over and trying to perceive some clue in the wording that would unlock my understanding of where three men, at the direction of their congregation called “Christ Church,” had hidden for a future generation, a time capsule. I hoped the contents would tell us so much about how this tiny church community, in this little country village in Orange County, New York would have had the faith to put worship, fellowship, pastoral care and service to God and community first above all in their lives. You see, it was three days before the community’s 150^th anniversary celebration and I so wanted them to have their time capsule for that celebration.

I had spent the morning with an expert in metal detecting, scouring the property around the foundation of the beautiful Carpenter Gothic Revival church, which had been completed in December of 1866. My instructions were written down in an early record book by the first long term pastor, which had linked a copper box, that served as the receptacle of a long list of mementos, their great gifts to the future, to a position under or behind a cornerstone. My problem was that there was no cornerstone visible on the outside of the church! Experts whom I consulted hinted at a possible internal cornerstone. So into the church we went, having had no luck outside. Renovations had been accomplished in recent years. Was the cornerstone somewhere near the altar and possibly covered by new walls or decorations? The machine we used showed no reaction. I thanked this man who had volunteered his expertise and his time and went home for lunch.

I was so disappointed! How could I call myself the historical interpreter of this church, the Church Historian, if I could not correctly interpret the documents and find their most prized historical possession? It had been described in such detail. What was I missing? The anniversary celebration of the founding of this community was a few days off and I wanted these people to celebrate in full joy with the missing piece discovered. Days earlier, I had prayed at the foot of the monument in the Warwick Cemetery, erected to Grinnell Burt, a most active and giving member of a three man building committee of the church in 1866. “Where is it?” I asked. “Where did you put it?” “Help me!” I kept hearing in my head, “Its completely surrounded by brick.” I didn’t understand the message. A cornerstone was ordinarily granite on one side and foundation stone of some kind on the other three sides like on the church across the street.

I sat down at the kitchen table as my husband, Michael, and my dad, a retired builder/contractor came in for lunch. They had been working on our new kitchen addition. We ate and I poured out my extreme disappointment at not being able to help the people of this church who had been so kind as to put their precious possessions into

my hands and trust me with them so that I could write this book. Michael then said that he and dad were almost done for the day. Would I like them to come over and help?

“Papa and I will find it,” he declared. I agreed to give it one more shot. If we were to find it, it had to be today.

So, over to the church we went. As we approached the Rector’s office, Father Scott came out. Michael and I were still worshipping at the Roman Catholic Church a few miles away and dad lived an hour from town so these three men had never met. To my husband, this little job was the hobby that kept me more cheerful and helped him not to worry about me so much. “Scott, this is my husband, Michael and my dad, Michael Jordan. We’re going to the basement to try one more time to find this box.” “We’re going to get good and dirty now!” quipped Mike as we headed down to a dirt basement and crawl space under the floor. “Have fun!” Father Scott shot back!

This was the dampest, creepiest, crawliest place you could imagine. A small room had been dug out of the dirt floor to give a ceiling of about 8 feet to accommodate an oil furnace in one corner. The rest was just crawl space, about 4 feet in height. The remnants of an old coal furnace lay in pieces in another corner. Everything was covered in cob webs and left-over coal dust. We were sure that we would be disturbing the homes of

several rodents, spiders and reptiles during our search. I hate mice, spiders, and snakes! Mike volunteered to crawl through a small doorway into the space, whose floor was at

the level of my shoulders. Using a small flashlight, he traveled around the entire perimeter of the church, looking along the brick foundation for any sign of a granite cornerstone. We took turns searching the boiler room and holding an extra light for Mike. Only a single bulb hung from a cord in the center of the space. It was really dark down there! The walls were completely of brick and showed no granite. The only odd thing we found was a brick pier at the south east corner of the church that did not seem to be holding up anything as the nearest beam was next to but not on top of it. At some point my dad went outside and upstairs and this is what he related to the community in a witness he gave to them just before he died:

“I was standing there alone and said, “Well, I’m not doing anything. I’m going to go upstairs and go outside and look and see where would be a very nice place that they would have the capsule.” I went upstairs and opened the door and I was looking down as I opened the door and when I looked up I said, “Oh my God!” I saw all the people from 1866 standing there in a vision, with horses and carriages and saddle horses- no children, all adults standing there all dressed in their Sunday best. In the rear was I think Mr Burt. He was the only one that stood out to me, and he smiled at me and I smiled back and he turned his head and looked over to one spot at the front of the church in that corner. He just stared there to where I had to go. When I got there, something told me to step off and it was 23 steps. I came in then and went down to the basement and stood against the wall. When I got to 17 steps, there was a cinder block wall in my way. I looked to the right and there was an opening crawl space. I looked in with my flashlight and counted off the other 6 steps. And there was an old brick enclosure, maybe Three to three and a half feet by four feet, and it had old bricks. Old bricks are like that (gesturing) not what you get today. I knew it was old bricks. Michael comes out from crawling, all dirty and tired. He said, “Papa, I gotta go home. I’m really tired” and I said, “Son , you can’t go home, you’ve got to knock out a brick for me. “Well, I’m really tired”, he said. “If you don’t do it now, you’ll have to come back later or tomorrow.” I don’t have any tools to knock out a brick, Papa.” I told him, “Here are the keys to my car. You’ll find everything you need there.” He said, “Which brick?” I said, “The second one down.” “Now what?” he said.

“Put your hand in there and see if you see anything or feel anything.” He put his hand in and he says to me, “Papa, I feel a box.” “Okay, take your flashlight and turn it on.” He puts on the flashlight and lo and behold, in all its glory is the box just sitting there. By this time, Scott’s son Sam came up, and he crawled up there next to Michael and actually

is the one that pulled the capsule out. That’s basically how we found it. But I have to tell you, there is no way in a million years that I could have picked out that brick. It had to be the Lord. Jesus had his hand in Ivy, Michael, myself, Sam, Father, the whole church. And

why shouldn’t it be? What’s your name? Christ Church. So He was here and He’s the one that found everything for us. Amen.”

He didn’t tell me until some days later, what had happened to him on the front lawn! I don’t know why because these types of visions were typical for him. Here is what I experienced.

So as he said, dad went out and paced off the space and said to us “This is a strange thing but I think it has to be in there.” referring to the pier. With that, I pointed my flashlight at the top of the pier and saw that it was covered by what seemed to be a hunk of granite. An internal cornerstone had been dropped through the floorboards at the time of construction, on top of a four sided pier made entirely of brick! I was to realize later, as I went through the records again, that the key phrase that I had missed was “beneath the cornerstone.” (Okay, Mr. Burt. You had the last laugh, and I apologize for being a bit dense!) Mike crawled back and confirmed that I was indeed seeing what I thought I was seeing and we decided that we were in the right place for sure when we noticed that someone, some years before, must have tried to dig under the pier to find this treasure. “Lets go for it!” we shouted. I found an ice pick and Mike went out to dad’s car and found a crowbar. Bricks started coming out, one by one. Mike began to be worried about

going any farther without the Rector’s consent, so I ran up and told him that we thought we might be in the right place and he should come down when he was finished talking to

a parishioner. As I reached the basement stairs, I heard the guys yell, “We see it! Get more tools!” I ran back to the Rector and said, “Quick! A hammer, a chisel of some kind….fast! We’ve got it! Father Scott found me a small hammer and screwdriver and we ran to the basement. “Father, yelled Mike from the dark hole, we can see it! Can I go farther?” “If you’re sure that thing isn’t holding up the church! I’ve gotta go across to the Rectory and get my kid!” He soon returned with his young son, Sam and a camera. Sam politely introduced himself and asked permission to help after taking a few pictures with his dad from the side of the crawl space. He was eleven years old and very excited, as we all were. Carefully, about six bricks and some old mortar were removed from a double walled vault. The warm green color of tarnished copper glowed under the flashlight. Sam had crawled in next to Mike and was holding the flashlight for him. “This is the single most exciting thing that has ever happened in my whole life!” came the voice of the youngster from the floor of the crawl space. I don’t remember whether I said it out loud or not but I was thinking the very same thing about myself. What do you know! We were archeologists! “Please”, said Sam, “My hands are small. Can I help?” Mike took the camera from him and rolled to his back so that he could take more pictures. “Pull it out, Sam.” he instructed. It was stuck by a bit of mortar, so after a little more chipping, Sam tried again. This time, we could tell the length of the box by the long gravelly sound of metal scraping on brick. Sam slid to the edge of the crawl space and passed the box to me as he prepared to jump down. Mike hopped down after him and everyone else came running. On the front of the box were imprinted the words” J. L. Sutton, Maker, July 16, 1866. The treasure was ours at last!

Ivy Tulin with the capsule, Sam Barker with the tools, A dusty Mike Tulin behind Sam, Mike Jordan, our “Papa” next to Sam. Photo Taken by Rev. Scott Barker