In 1898, a generation after the Civil War of 1861-1865, Perry County citizens dedicated in New Bloomfield a monument to soldiers and sailors who participated in that conflict to secure the Union and advance the freedom of all Americans. Members of the county's Grand Army of the Republic veteran posts and several thousand others gathered in a rainstorm on October 22, 1898, listened to speeches, observed a parade, and unveiled the 45 1/2-foot-tall statue saluting those who served. Authorized in 1897 by the County Court for the sum of $10,000, a contract was awarded to the company of Edward Gallagher, Jr. of Philadelphia. On September 17, 1898, an airtight, tin box was placed without ceremony within the monument space. Its contents included a list of those who died in the war, names of local veterans from all American wars to that time, a New Testament, representative newspapers, a list of elected officials, and a rock and peach from the Gettysburg battlefield. Among the dignitaries speaking on Dedication Day was Andrew K. McClure, a Perry County native and confidential advisor to President Abraham Lincoln. Bands played, veterans marched, and with so many visitors in town, local citizens were deputized to keep order; that evening, their presence was put to use when rowdies disturbed the peace. In 1998, the community marked the monument's centennial with a grand parade, but high school students, history teachers, Civil War Bucktail reenactors armed with shovels, and an expert using a magnetometer failed to uncover the elusive 1898 box, so the community buried a new time capsule to be opened in 2048.