Skull and Bones

For the pirate flag, see Jolly Roger. For the international poison symbol, see Skull and crossbones. For the Cypress Hill album, see Skull & Bones (album).

Emblem of the Skull and Bones society

The Order of Skull and Bones, once known as The Brotherhood of Death, is a secret society based at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut, and is one of the oldest student secret societies in the United States. Skull and Bones has maintained its selective membership, Masonic-inspired rituals, and other aspects for 175 years. The society's alumni organization, which owns its properties and oversees undergraduate activity, is the Russell Trust Association, named after one of Bones' founding members. The society has only established one colony chapter outside of its Yale University campus, a co-brotherhood known as Theta Nu Epsilon, or the secret one, that was first established at Wesleyan University on December 11, 1870.

History

The society inducts only rising seniors during the late junior year prior to their graduation. By reputation, "Bonesmen" tapped the current football and heavyweight rowing captains as well as notables from the Yale Daily News and Yale Lit before the 1970s. The group's decision, after much dispute, to admit women helped diversify the membership along lines that reflect current undergraduate activity. Numerous undergraduate constituencies are better represented among the recently-tapped membership (as with the other societies) compared to the Skull and Bones "cohorts", or "delegations", that included the 27th, 41st and 43rd Presidents of the United States.

There are many other notable members of Skull and Bones throughout history. Bonesman Benjamin Sillman Jr. was the first to produce gasoline, and the first American oil company, Pennsylvania Rock Oil, had connections to the order. In 1886, Bonesman Morrison R. Waite was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who ruled that the 14th amendment, designed to protect freed black slaves, actually applied to business corporations, giving corporations the rights and privileges of personhood. Skull and Bones members played a key role in founding and setting the direction for the Carnegie Institution, the Peabody, Slater, and Russel Sage Foundations, as well as the American Economic Association, the American Historical Association, and the American Psychological Association. The first presidents of the University of California, John Hopkins, and Cornell were all Bonesmen. On October 22, 1945, Secretary of War Robert Patterson created the Lovett Committee, chaired by Bonesman Robert A. Lovett to develop a new U.S. intelligence apparatus. This resulted in the creation of the CIA, which has employed a number of Bonesmen.

The Skull and Bones tomb in the 19th century, before adjacent Yale buildings and tree growth.

The Skull & Bones tomb today

Another vantage of the historic Bones tomb.

Bones tomb showing A.J. Davis' towers, right rear facade.

Members meet in the Bones "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. Reputedly, members are assigned a nickname. For Bones, it is said that these names are associated with Roman mythology, while at Scroll and Key the names are associated with Greek mythology, and with Egyptian mythology at Wolf's Head.

Architecture

• Main building, attribution in dispute. Possibly Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892) or Henry Austin (1804–1891). (1856: first wing; 1903: second wing; 1911: addition of relocated Davis-designed Neo-Gothic towers at rear garden. Front and side facades brownstone Egypto-Doric style.)
• Evarts Tracy and Edgerton Swartwout, Tracy and Swartwout, New York. (1912, Bones' adjacent "secret garden" described as an "Oxfordesque

Cloister".)[2] 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).

Architectural historian Patrick Pinnell includes an in-depth discussion of the dispute over the identity of the architect in his 1999 history of Yale's campus. Pinnell relates how first the left-side block (1856), then forty-seven years later the right-side block, and ultimately the gothic towers salvaged from A. J. Davis' 1851–53 Alumni Hall on Old Campus were added at the time of the creation of their cloister. The salvage is also mentioned at [3].

Pinnell speculates whether the re-use of the Davis towers was evidence of an architectural "filial piety" suggesting that Davis did the original building; conversely, Austin was responsible for the atmospherically similar brownstone Egyptian Revival gates, built 1845, of the Grove Street Cemetery, on the opposite side of campus. Also discussed by Pinnell is the tomb's aesthetic place in relation to its neighbors, including the Yale Art Gallery. (p.42, "Yale University" 1999 Princeton Architectural Press ISBN 1568981678 [4].) Additional data at [5]

Bonesmen

Main article: List of Skull and Bones members

File:Skull and Crossbones c1947, GHW Bush left of clock.jpg

Skull and Bones 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. The first exposé 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." [6]

Notwithstanding that resourceful researchers could assemble member data from these original sources, renewed attention may have been paid to leading families in Skull and Bones because 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.

Many influential figures have been in Bones and influential families have often had multiple members over successive generations, much like other societies at Yale. Bonesmen include U.S. Presidents such as George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and William Howard Taft, Supreme Court Justices, and U.S. business leaders.

Both 2004 Presidential Nominees —- Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and now two-term President George W. Bush — were members of Skull and Bones. The nominees were interviewed separately by Meet the Press's Tim Russert. When asked about the organization, both declined to give any details.

Asset Management & Financial Associations

The Russell Trust Association is the corporate parent for the Skull and Bones society.

In 1943, by special act of the Connecticut state legislature, its trustees were granted an exemption from filing corporate reports with the Secretary of State, which is normally a requirement.

From 1978 onward, business of the Russell Trust Association was handled by its single trustee, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. partner John B. Madden, Jr. Madden started with Brown Brothers Harriman in 1946, under senior partner Prescott Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush's father.

On its 2004 Form 990, the Russell Trust Association reported $3,205,143 in net assets.

Trivia

• A letter, sent by member Winter Mead to member F. Trubee Davison in 1918, said Geronimo's skull and other remains were taken from the leader's burial site and deposited at the Skull and Bones headquarters.[7]

• In an episode of the comedy series The Whitest Kids U'Know, Trevor Moore tells a group of young children about the society, and how he believes that the society is Satanic.

• The plot of a 2000 film, The Skulls, is based upon some of the conspiracy theories associated with Skull and Bones Society.

See also

• List of collegiate secret societies
• Secret society
• List of conspiracy theories

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
• 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

External links

• Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Website
• List of members
• 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
• The New American Article on the Skull and Bones Society, and its political influences
• How the Secret Societies Got That Way (Yale Alumni Magazine)
• Video of 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. (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 preform 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.
• Skull and Bones video and info
• RTC Network
• Skull & Bones Network of Connections
• Bohemian Grove Network of Connections
• Boodle Boys Yale Flying Unit