112-year-old message found in beer bottle at NJ university

The bricklayers are long gone, but their message in a bottle recently was discovered — 112 years after being entombed in a wall at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

A demolition laborer working on renovating College Hall made the discovery, the university reported.

The laborer was using a chipping hammer when he said “I hit a void and I heard glass break. And I’m like, ‘Something’s not right.’ So, we took away the debris and I found the glass and then I found the note.”

The note was dated July 3, 1907.

“This is to certify that this wall was built by two bricklayers from Newark, N.J., by the names of William Hanly and James Lennon, members of No. 3 of the B.M.I.U. of America.”

The message was written in cursive and blue ink and stuffed inside a beer bottle.

“It’s wild to think of the message has been sitting there dormant for 100 years just waiting for us to find it,” that,” said Sharon Mahoney, Montclair’s director of construction management.