I had never heard of the Beale Ciphers until I recently read an article in, of all things, the Popular Mechanics magazine. The Beale Ciphers are said to provide the clues that will lead you to a treasure which supposedly lies hidden in a mansion in Philadelphia, among other places. The treasure is reputed to include three thousand pounds (3,000lbs) of gold and five thousand one hundred pounds (5,100lbs) of silver, among other highly valuable items. I’m not sure why this story struck my fancy, but it did, and it may well strike yours as well, be it an old wives’ tale or not.
Since the 1800’s, the Beale Ciphers have lured tens of thousands of searchers: treasure hunters who have combed countless hills throughout the country; computer geeks who turned to processing power to crack the mystery; career government spies; historians who have plunged into archives in search of clues; and many others.
The story of the treasure goes like this. Around 1819, a party of explorers located a vast treasure trove of gold and silver near what is now Santa Fe, New Mexico. The group’s leader, Thomas Jefferson Beale, hailed from a distinguished family with roots in upper-class Britain, although research has revealed him to be a scofflaw; a womanizer and a gunslinger. According to legend, a fight over a woman escalated into a gunfight with a neighbor. Believing his rival was dead, Beale bolted for the West, where he fell in with a crew that eventually found the stash of precious metals.
The men realized that they had unearthed an ungodly sum – today the gold alone would be worth over $60 million. They shuttled it back to Virginia in wagon trains and buried it in 1820. They then returned to the West for a second expedition. Beale left behind a locked, iron, box with a Lynchburg tavern keeper, Robert Morriss, and then sent instructions to open it if he had not returned within a decade. Morriss forgot about the box for twenty-three years. When he finally broke it open, he found two letters along with “some unintelligible papers covered with figures” – the three ciphers. The missives described the treasure and said the code keys were in the mail – but they never appeared. Morriss spent 17 years trying to make sense of Beale’s bequeathal. Beale himself was never seen again.
In 1862, a frustrated and aging Morriss handed the documents to a family friend, James Ward. Ward tried to decipher them for 20 years and finally gave up, after announcing that the ciphers were based on the U.S. Declaration of Independence. He then published them with a warning that read, “Devote only such time as can be spared from your legitimate business to the task. If you can spare no time, let the matter alone.”
Treasure hunters have spent the subsequent 140 years flouting that counsel, hunkering in libraries, driving bulldozers, wielding shovels, digging countless holes across the Virginia countryside. The number of treasure hunters grew so large at one point that Virginia farmers took to shooting at trespassers. In 1981 the Smithsonian magazine called Beale, “one of the largest and most costly treasure hunts in U.S. history, baffling the finest mathematical minds in the country, and defeating their computers, while inducing frustration, despair and bankruptcy”. It quickly became an addiction for many people that often resulted not only in a complete lifestyle change but also, in many cases, death.
One such devotee, Ken Bauman, calculates that he has spent three-quarters of his life pursuing a web of interrelated historical intrigues, culminating with the Beale papers. The computer scientist, Carl Hammer, probably summed up the more sane of Beale fanatics when he said, “I wouldn’t care if the Beale papers turned out to be a hoax because the hunt has helped advance and refine computer research. And, beyond that, the whole affair has been fascinating and just plain fun”.
If you are so inclined, the Beale papers are easily accessible, and in the public domain. The treasure awaits!
