The logo of Skull and Bones.

Skull and Bones is a secret society based at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. The society’s alumni organization, which owns the society’s real property and oversees the organization’s activity, is the Russell Trust Association, and is named after General William Huntington Russell^[1] founding member of the Bones’ organization along with fellow classmate Alphonso Taft. In conversation, the group is known as “Bones”, and members have been known as “Bonesmen”.^[2]

In the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, both the Democratic and Republican nominees were alumni. George W. Bush writes in his autobiography, “[In my] senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society; so secret, I can’t say anything more.”^[3] When asked what it meant that he and Bush were both Bonesmen, former Presidential candidate John Kerry said, “Not much because it’s a secret.”^[4][5]

History

The Skull and Bones “tomb” between 1903 and 1911, before the rear towers.

Skull and Bones was formed in 1832 as a result of a dispute among Yale’s debating societies, Linonia, Brothers in Unity, and Calliope over the Phi Beta Kappa awards.^[6]

It was once referred to as The Brotherhood of Death,^[7] but a more common alternative name was Eulogia. The only “chapter” of Skull and Bones created outside Yale was a chapter at Wesleyan University in 1870. That chapter, the Beta of Skull & Bones, became independent in 1872 in a dispute over control over creating additional chapters; the Beta Chapter reconstituted itself as Theta Nu Epsilon.^[8]

The emblem of Skull and Bones is a skull with crossed bones, over the number “322″. Some have speculated that 322 stands for “founded in ‘32, 2nd corps”, referring to a first Corps in some unknown German university which has never been found. Others suggest that 322 refers to the era of Demosthenes and that documents in the society hall have purportedly been found dated to “Anno-Demostheni”.^[9]

Members meet in the “tomb” on Thursday and Sunday evenings of each week over the course of their senior year. As with other Yale societies, the sharing of a personal history is the keystone of the senior year together in the “tomb”.

Members are assigned nicknames. “Long Devil” is assigned to the tallest member; “Boaz” (Either a short for “Beelzebub,” or the name of one of the two detached columns of copper or bronze in “King Solomon’s Temple,” the other one being “Jachin”) goes to any member who is a varsity football captain. Many of the chosen names are drawn from literature (”Hamlet,” “Uncle Remus”), from religion and from myth. The banker Lewis Lapham passed on his name, “Sancho Panza,” to the political adviser Tex McCrary. Averell Harriman was “Thor,” Henry Luce was “Baal,” McGeorge Bundy was “Odin.” George H.W. Bush was “Magog,” a name reserved for a member considered to have the most sexual experience. George W. Bush, unable to decide, was temporarily called “Temporary,” and the name was never changed.^[10]

Skull and Bones also owns a campground island in the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York named Deer Island. “The forty-acre retreat is intended to give Bonesmen an opportunity to ‘get together and rekindle old friendships.’ A century ago the island sported tennis courts and its softball fields were surrounded by rhubarb plants and gooseberry bushes. Catboats waited on the lake. Stewards catered elegant meals. Although each new Skull and Bones member still visits Deer Island, the place leaves something to be desired. ‘Now it is just a bunch of burned-out stone buildings,’ a patriarch sighs. ‘It’s basically ruins.’ Another Bonesman says that to call the island ‘rustic’ would be to glorify it. ‘It’s a dump, but it’s beautiful.’”^[11]

Lore

Bones “tomb” showing A. J. Davis’ towers, north facade.

The first extended description of Skull and Bones, published in 1871 by Lyman Bagg in his book Four Years at Yale, noted that “the mystery now attending its existence forms the one great enigma which college gossip never tires of discussing.”^[12] Brooks Mather Kelley attributed the secrecy of Yale senior societies to the fact that underclassmen members of freshman, sophomore, and junior class societies remained on campus following their membership, while seniors naturally left.^[13]

The secrecy surrounding Skull and Bones has been a fertile ground for speculation, and all sorts of conspiracy theories include Skull and Bones. The society is supposed to have illicit connections to the CIA, Illuminati, Bilderbergers, and/or Freemasons. These theories were the basis of the 2000 film The Skulls which concerns a highly elaborate secret society with clear parallels to Skull and Bones. Bones was also included, as well as the a cappella group the Whiffenpoofs, in the 2006 film The Good Shepherd, about the Central Intelligence Agency.

Skull and Bones has also figured from time to time in the Doonesbury comic strips by Garry Trudeau; especially in 1980 and December 1988, with reference to George H.W. Bush, and again at the time that the society went co-ed.

The Skull & Bones Hall, or “Tomb”, and its Architecture

The Skull and Bones “Tomb” today

The architectural attribution of the original hall is in dispute. The architect was possibly Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892) or Henry Austin (1804–1891). Architectural historian Patrick Pinnell includes an in-depth discussion of the dispute over the identity of the original architect in his 1999 history of Yale’s campus.^[14]

The building was built in three phases: in 1856 the first wing was built, in 1903 the second wing, and in 1911, Davis-designed Neo-Gothic towers from a previous building were added at the rear garden. The front and side facades are of Portland brownstone and in an Egypto-Doric style.

The 1911 additions of towers, (relocated from another Yale building), in the rear created a small enclosed courtyard in the rear of the building, designed by Evarts Tracy and Edgerton Swartwout, Tracy and Swartwout, New York.^[15] Evarts was not a Bonesman, but his paternal grandmother Martha Sherman Evarts and maternal grandmother Mary Evarts were the sisters of William Maxwell Evarts (S&B 1837). Pinnell speculates whether the re-use of the Davis towers in 1911 was evidence suggesting that Davis did the original building; conversely, Austin was responsible for the architecturally similar brownstone Egyptian Revival gates, built 1845, of the Grove Street Cemetery, to the north of campus. Also discussed by Pinnell is the “tomb’s” aesthetic place in relation to its neighbors, including the Yale University Art Gallery.^[16] Additional data can be seen here. New Hampshire landscape architects Saucier & Flynn designed the wrought-iron fence that currently surrounds a portion of the complex in the late 1990s.^[17]

Bonesmen

Main article: List of Skull and Bones members

Skull and Bones in 1947, with George H.W. Bush just left of clock

Judy Schiff, Chief Archivist at the Yale University Library, has written: “The names of (S&B’s) members weren’t kept secret, that was an innovation of the 1970s, but its meetings and practices were. The secrecy seems to have attracted fascination and curiosity from the start.”

While resourceful researchers could assemble member data from these original sources, in 1985 an anonymous source leaked rosters to a private researcher, Antony C. Sutton, who wrote a book on the group titled America’s Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones. This leaked 1985 data was kept privately for over 15 years, as Sutton feared that the photocopied pages could somehow identify the member who leaked it. The information was finally reformatted as an appendix in the book Fleshing out Skull and Bones, a compilation edited by Kris Millegan, published in 2003.^[18]

Skull and Bones in popular culture

Movies

• The Skulls
• The Good Shepherd

See also

• Collegiate secret societies in North America
• Secret society
• List of conspiracy theories

References

Further reading

• Millegan, Kris, ed. Fleshing Out Skull and Bones: Investigations into America’s Most Powerful Secret Society. Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2003. ISBN 0-9720207-2-1
• Sutton, Antony C. America’s Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones. Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2003. ISBN 0-9720207-0-5
• Begin, Jeremy. Fighting for G.O.D. (Gold, Oil, and Drugs). Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9777953-3-8
• Tarpley, Webster, et al. George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography. Washington, D.C.: Executive Intelligence Review, 1992. ISBN 0-943235-05-7. Available free on the web: http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm
• Robbins, Alexandra. Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power. Back Bay Books, 2003. ISBN 0-316-73561-2
• “Whose Skull and Bones?,” Kathrin Day Lassila ‘81 and Mark Alden Branch ‘86, Yale Alumni Magazine, May/June 2006
• “Geronimo’s family calls on Bush to help return his skeleton.” The Independent, June 1, 2006.
• Skull & Bones Society: A rare look inside Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society and sometime haunt of the presumptive Republican nominee for President, by Alexandra Robbins
• Cody Tedford. Powerful Secrets. Hannover, 2008. ISBN 1-4241-9263-3

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Skull and bones

Wikinews has related news: Apaches accuse Prescott Bush of robbing Geronimo’s grave

• Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Website
• Yale Old Campus, Skull and Bones “Tomb”. opens in Google earth
• Skull and Bones property: Deer Island opens in Google earth
• Deer Island photos & information at NewRuins
• How the Secret Societies Got That Way (Yale Alumni Magazine)
• 2001 NEWS Report about Skull and bones ritual at YouTube - ABC News’ Dan Harris reports on covertly shot footage that exposes the “Bonesmen” of Skull & Bones as they perform occult rituals at “The tomb” in New Haven. The video - shot with nightvision technology and a microphone - was secretly captured with a hidden camera on the evening of April 14, 2001 by New York Observer reporter Ron Rosenbaum. (This video is hosted by YouTube.com)
• Audio and transcript the April 23, 2001 ABC News segment: Behind the Closed Doors of a Secret Society - ABC News’ Dan Harris reports on covertly shot footage that exposes the “Bonesmen” of Skull & Bones as they perform occult rituals at “The tomb” in New Haven. The video - shot with nightvision technology and a microphone - was secretly captured with a hidden camera on the evening of April 14, 2001 by New York Observer reporter Ron Rosenbaum. Link has additional pertinent information, as well.