History is rarely found just lying on the surface. It usually requires a bit of digging - or in the case of Dallas Masonic Lodge No. 182, a bit of drilling, a metal detector, a flexible inspection tool, muscle and a century-old set of minutes. More than a decade ago, Lodge Brothers Phil Pearce and Sammy Graham were preparing to digitize the Lodge’s minutes. Their intentions were to preserve the remaining Lodge minutes from 1924, since those before that date had become lost. As they read the old minutes, handwritten in a ledger, they came across an account of a “time capsule” which had been placed within a cornerstone of the Lodge in 1925. It piqued their interest, but after their cursory search didn’t turn up anything, they decided that for the moment, the work of digitizing the minutes was of primary importance, and they continued with their task. The capsule remained safely entombed in its resting place, silent, as 18 men assumed the office of U.S. President, and as the population of the city surrounding it grew from about 1,300 to over 14,000.
As the Lodge prepared to celebrate its 100th year in its current home near the corner of Main Street and Memorial, the search began again in the archives. There, in the Lodge minutes of December 26, 1925, the 2025 Worshipful Master of the Lodge, Joshua Vinnacombe, found an account of a 2:00 p.m. ceremony during which a “time capsule” was placed directly behind the Square and Compasses inscribed on the building’s cornerstone. The quest to find the capsule was no simple task. Early attempts by Vinnacombe with a metal detector yielded nothing but silence. In the fall of 2025, he and Brother Phillip DiGiacomo and other members even went so far as to pull back wood boards in a front closet, hoping for a glimpse behind the brick. Again, they found no luck in that try.
Determined not to let the centennial pass without an answer, Vinnacombe made a final "last-ditch" effort on a Saturday morning in late 2025. After another search this time behind a library wall yielded only concrete, the investigation moved to the alley between the Lodge and the Police Department. Using a masonry drill and a modern inspection scope, Vinnacombe removed small sections of mortar in order to allow an inspection probe into the narrow void behind the outer stone. As he manipulated the probe inside the stone, suddenly, the light of the scope caught a reflection - the surreal glint of glass! For the first time in over a century, human eyes had beheld the Lodge’s Time Capsule. But it was still out of reach. More help was needed. Access to the cornerstone from a different angle was required.
To ensure the cornerstone was handled with the proper reverence and historical preservation called for, the Lodge called upon Worshipful Brother Bobby Hulsey, a Past Master of Tallapoosa Lodge No. 126 and a stonemason by trade. Hulsey generously donated his team’s time, expertise, and labor to the recovery process. On December 23, 2025, Hulsey, alongside Brothers Chad Benson, Joey Frey, and Phillip DiGiacomo, carefully extracted the cornerstone. The Mason jar, so aptly named, was very carefully retrieved, a new “capsule” was set in its place for the next century, and the stone was reinstalled.
The true climax occurred inside the Lodge on December 27, 2025 - St. John the Evangelist Day. Before a gathered Open House crowd and rolling cameras, Worshipful Master Donny Pace and the Lodge leadership unsealed the dusty jar. Inside, protected by the glass, were relics of a Dallas long past. The contents included two Royal Arch pennies belonging to WB E.B. Penn, a Christmas card and portions of an address from Grand Master Richardson, a typewritten roster of Paulding County officers and attorneys from 1925, and a perfectly preserved, complete and only known copy of the Dallas New Era from December 1925, perhaps a one- of-a-kind treasure. It records, just as the New Era has recorded since shortly after the Civil War, what was happening in and around Dallas during that week.
The Lodge plans to host an Open House sometime later this Spring, at which time these items will be on display for the public, along with a video of the “excavation” and retrieval of the Time Capsule.
While the newspaper is now brittle with age, it serves as a vivid bridge to the men who stood on that same corner a hundred years ago. The "Mason jar" mystery has been solved - an example that by following some of the principles of Freemasonry such as Brotherly Love, fortitude, and the application of the right tools, good and wholesome tasks can be accomplished.

The capsule, with December 1925 DNE inside, Brothers Joey Frey, Chad Benson, and Phillip Digiacomo with the "Time Capsule".

by Phil Pearce - www.dallasmasoniclodge182.org