The story of the Skull
An explanation of the namesake for this sub is in order. I chose it because I think it is one of the most overt examples of the longevity and reach of families of the elite and their institutions. Right in the open, so brazen, and when confronted have the capacity and influence to just make their problems go away. This is the story of Geronimo’s Skull:
For those unaware, Geronimo was an Apache warrior, and one of the last holdouts during the American-Plains Indians Wars. Geronimo would lead breakouts from reservations to try and reestablish their previous nomadic lifestyle. He was eventually captured by the US Army and held as a prisoner of war until his death in 1909. He was subsequently buried at Fort Sill. This is still an active base, and the cemetery has its own official government website. Interestingly, Geronimo is not among the list of notable graves. This is because he is not at the main cemetery on the fort, Fort Sill Post Cemetery, but at the Beef Creek Cemetery, where Apache POWs who died while prisoners were buried. It is located on a remote part of the base, beside the landfill.
More interestingly, Geronimo likely isn’t actually at that gravesite anymore either. It is allegedly in the clubhouse of Yale’s Skull & Bones secret society, known as “The Tomb.” The building is located in New Haven by Yale’s campus at 64 High Street.
Discovered in the Sterling Memorial Archives by Marc Wortman while conducting research for a book, a letter between two members of Yale’s Skull & Bones secret society, whom refer to each other as “knights,” Winter Mead (’18) and Frederick Trubee Davison (’19), discuss the robbery quite transparently. The letter dated June 7, 1918 is below:
“The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club & the Knight Haffner, is now safe inside the Tomb together with his well-worn femurs bit & saddle horn.”
Just as a point of reference for the type of people that get “tapped” to become members, a quick review of the career of Frederick Trubee Davison (recipient of the letter). His father was Henry Davison, a senior partner at JP Morgan, and was involved in the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Frederick attended elite boarding school, The Groton School prior to joining the Yale class of 1918. He left for a year to found “First Yale Unit,” which went on to become the basis for the Naval Air Reserve. Basically, a bunch of rich guys got together to make their own mini air force during WW1. This is described in greater detail in the book of the writer that discovered the letter above “The Millionaire’s Unit.” He returned to Yale and graduated with the 1919 class. In 1920 he married Dorothy Peabody, daughter of headmaster and founder of The Groton School, Endicott Peabody. Endicott Peabody was also the headmaster for President Franklin Roosevelt, officiated his wedding, and the weddings of all his children. Super normal stuff.
Returning to Yale Frederick Davison’s roommate was Artemus Gates, another Bonesman, who married his sister, Alice Davison. These people really like to keep their social networks pretty inbred it seems. Artemus then became Commandant of the Navy Flying Corps, Undersecretary of the Navy, and president of Union Pacific, Time Magazine, Boeing, and Abercrombie and Fitch, among others. Normal career stuff.
Other 1918 Skull & Bones class members included: a future House of Representatives member and UN delegate, John Vorys; future Assistant Secretary of the Navy and relative of President William Taft (also a Bonesman), David Sinton Ingalls; future Secretary of Defense and Under Secretary of State referred to as “an architect of the Cold War,” as well as becoming president of Union Pacific Railroad, National City Bank and Western Union, Robert A. Lovett.
After graduating Yale, Freddy Davison became Assistant Secretary of War for Air, President of the American Natural History Museum, and later Director of Personnel for the Central Intelligence Agency. Also, interesting to note, he ran on a ticket for NY Governor with William “Wild Bill” Donovan, founding member of the OSS which later became the CIA. There is literally a statue of him in the lobby of CIA headquarters.
Just on the basis of having a wikipedia page, it can be assumed they held some reasonably influential positions. Below are the 15 members of the 1917 and 1918 Skull & Bones classes:
1917: Alfred Rammond Bellinger; Prescott Bush; Henry Fenimore Cooper; Oliver Baty Cunningham; Samuel Sloan Duryee; Edward Roland Neil Harriman; Henry Porter Isham; Ellery Sedgewick James; Harry William Legore; Henry Neil Mallon; Albert William Olsen; John Williams Overton; Frank Parsons Shepard; Kenneth Farrand Simpson; Knight Woolley
1918: Allan Wallace Ames; Howard Malcolm Baldridge; Cassius Marcellus Clay; Frederick Trubee Davison; Robert Barr Deans; John Chapman Farrar; Newell Garfield; Artemus L. Gates; James Gould; Robert Ambercrombie Lovett; Raymond Franklin Snell; Charles Jacob Stewart; Charles Phelps Taft II; John Martin Vorys; John Elliot Woolley
Not bad turnouts for the 1918 class, considering there are only 15 of them. The four alleged grave robbers did not do badly either. Charles C Haffner (1919), the Knight referenced in the letter, became a general during WW2. Ellery James (1917), became a banker and died in 1932. Henry Neil Mallon (1917) became an oil company chairman, and was the first employer of future Bonesman President George H. W. Bush (1984), and just coincidentally, his father and Bonesman Prescott Bush (1917) was also there when they (allegedly) robbed the grave of Geronimo. (H. W. also became director of the CIA.)
The names of the other Bonesman are known because of a purportedly leaked internal centennial history of the society written by Bonesman Francis Otto Matthiesen (1923) in the 1930s, (Skull & Bones was cofounded in 1832 by the father of President Taft), which names three of a reported six grave diggers, all three of which were stationed at Fort Sill.
This centennial history was leaked in 1986 in an anonymous letter to chair of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, Ned Anderson, along with a photo of a skull in a display case.
Back to the recipient of the letter, Frederick Davison, and his wife Dorothy Peabody; their son Endicott Peabody Davison would go on to also be a Skull & Bones member (1948), same class as future President George H. W. Bush. After receiving the letter in 1986 Anderson and other Apache leaders first attempted to have Skull & Bones return the skull, Endicott Davison and Bonesman Jonathan Bush (class of 1953 and son of Prescott Bush, brother of President H. W. Bush, and uncle of President George W. Bush) met with them and denied possession, insisting the photo inside the case belonged to a ten-year-old boy, and not Geronimo. Which is somehow weirder. They also brought this skull to the meeting.
Endicott went on to again deny the society had the remains of Pancho Villa, in a 1988 interview. Also, just to again show the kind of nepotism these people love, just like his grandfather, he served on the board of the American Museum of Natural History.
“In 2004, Garrick Bailey, a member of the board that oversees the return of Indian remains under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, asked the National Park Service to look into the allegations.” This request was denied. Adding to the challenges of exhuming the body to see if his head is there, in 1928 the army decided to cover his grave with concrete, which I am sure is a coincidence despite the number of Bonesman that held high positions in government and military at that time.
Let’s also keep in mind that in 2004 George W Bush (1968) was president, and running against another bonesman in the 2004 presidential election, John Kerry (1966). So two guys in the same secret society were our two choices for president.
In W’s autobiography he wrote “During my senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society, so secret I can’t say anything more.” Reassuring.
In 2009 the issue resurfaced when the descendants of Geronimo sued Skull & Bones and the Federal Government. The Federal Government was sued as because his remains would be property of the Federal Government. The suit against the government was quickly dismissed by Judge Richard Roberts on the basis that the government had not “waived its right to be sued without its consent.” A legal principle known as “sovereign immunity.” Basically it means that a state cannot commit a legal wrong and cannot be sued unless it agrees it can be sued. Which is great.
The suit against Skull & Bones was also dismissed in 2010, not because there was not enough evidence to support the society had the remains, but because the plaintiffs cited the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and the court ruled that this law only applies to grave robberies that took place after 1990….So the judge let them off the hook citing a technicality, and made no comment on the probability of the claim being true. Shortly after this ruling Judge Roberts was promoted to Chief Judge of DC.
I think the most telling element of the whole affair is the consistency with which alumni of Skull & Bones go on to fill roles in the highest levels of government and the private sector, contributing to the revolving door effect with which to abuse public office and divert the taxpayer dollars into their own private interests of themselves and their friends. This trend is visible back to the 1919 class, as well blatantly through the Iraq War, and continues to infect our highest offices.
Skull & Bones is also suspected to have the stolen skulls of President Van Buren and Pancho Villa.
Later I would like to get into the stronger links between intelligence and the society, but I think just from the above it is already obvious there are deep ties between the state and the society.