A crew working to restore a centuries-old gristmill in Roslyn discovered a pair of messages left by two men who worked to preserve the same building more than 100 years ago. George Gorski, 48, a carpenter at Woodbury-based E&A Restoration, found the two letters and four vintage coins in an old milk bottle encased in a concrete slab Oct. 14 at Roslyn Grist Mill. The 18th-century Dutch-framed water mill on Old Northern Boulevard has been under restoration since late 2018. 

"It ties together 104 years of restoration," said Howard Kroplick, president of the Roslyn Landmark Society in charge of the effort. The two men behind the 1917 time capsule were part of a team tasked by Harold Godwin, poet William Cullen Bryant’s grandson, to turn the then-abandoned mill into a museum of industrial arts. One letter was written in Italian by mason Romolo Caparrelli and another in English by carpenter and builder Stephen Speedling.