In Essex County, New York in 1882, a mysterious man called Henry D. Debosnys was convicted of (and executed for) killing his newly-married wife, a widow by the name of Elizabeth Wells. He claimed to have been born near Lisbon in 1836, but refused to identify himself further, saying that to do so would bring shame upon his family.
From his time in jail, Debosnys left behind some drawings and sketches; some poetry in French (though fairly egotistical and shallow, it has to be said); and some cryptograms, at least one of which also seems to be a poem:-
However, nobody has so far decrypted so much as a word of any of these. I’ve put a complete set of scans on the Cipher Foundation website, and will post transcriptions there in a while, when I’ve worked out a good way of transcribing them (because doing so isn’t quite as easy as you might think).
I first found out about this cipher mystery from Klaus Schmeh’s presentation at the recent (2015) NSA cryptology history conference (as recorded by Rich SantaColoma), which focused on those historical affairs that involve both an unsolved cipher and an unsolved (or at least somewhat unexplained) crime.
Incidentally, there’s a 127-page book on the whole Debosnys affair – Adirondack Enigma: The Depraved Intellect and Mysterious Life of North Country Wife Killer Henry Debosnys by Cheri L. Farnsworth (2010) – which I have (of course) ordered and will discuss further when it lands on my doorstep.
But meanwhile, there’s plenty to be said about Debosnys’s ciphers themselves…
Initials in the Ciphers
Given that Debosnys claimed to have previously been married twice, the presence of a pair of holding hands next to the initials “L.M.F.” is suggestive of something to do with a relationship:-
There are also some initials embedded in one of the cryptograms, with a number of dots below each letters.
Given that the man’s name was Henry D. Debosnys, these H[4] D[8] D[7] L[6] M[6] F[5] patterns of dots suggest (if I have been able to count the dots correctly from the scan) that they code for H[enry] D[xxxxxxxx] D[ebosnys] L[xxxxxx] M[xxxxxx] F[xxxxx]. And my guess is that this will be true of sub-glyph dots elsewhere in the cryptograms. I would be interested to know what his middle name was, given that this pattern of dots seems to indicate its length.
Doubled Letters
From the cryptograms I have seen (and, needless to say, there may be more that I haven’t), there are only three glyph shapes that obviously appear in pairs:
Of these three, the doubled dotted-X pair (six or so instances) appears much more frequently than the other pairs (one each): which makes me suspect it is a genuine letter. If I had to guess, though, I’d predict that this “XX” glyph pair stands in for the French “double-v” (i.e. the letter “W”), because of the absence of many other doubled glyphs in the text. Doubtless you’ll have your own opinion, though.
By the way, does anyone have the doubled-letter instance statistics for French?
Snakes (but no Ladders)
The mention of snakes (as ornamental design features) in the Copiale Cipher certainly had some kind of echo (perhaps inadvertantly, perhaps not) in the second La Buse cryptogram. And, curiously, six snakes appear integrated into the text of Debosnys’s cryptograms:-
Even though I don’t yet know what is going on with these ciphers, I personally would be somewhat surprised if they turn out to have anything obviously to do with Freemasonry. But that’s just my opinion, make of it what you will (a crane, perhaps, or possibly a boat, depending on how good you are at origami).
Clustered Glyphs
These sit right at the heart of the problem we face when we try to transcribe Debosnys’s ciphers. So many of the glyphs we see are formed from a consistent set of subshapes that it looks very much to me as though many of these component pieces will turn out to be vowels, common letters or perhaps even spaces.
I’ve put a few of these clusters together here:
So, what would be the best way of transcribing these clusters? It’s far from obvious to me: I suspect that as soon as you know how to transcribe them, you’ll also know how to read the whole text.
And The First Decrypted Word Will Be…
For me, there’s little doubt that the first decrypted word will be either ‘je’, ‘me’ or ‘moi’, and that it will be in the poem-like section of the cryptogram. This is simply because Debosnys’s French poem uses the words ‘je’, ‘me’ or ‘moi’ on pretty much every line, so it seems highly likely to me that his encrypted poem will turn out to have much the same (egotistical) profile.
But please feel free to form your own cipher theories. 🙂
When I read the number 10 sheet, I can tell that there is a lof of spelling mistakes in the french text ! So, we can expect to find same mistake in the cypher.
I just found a newspaper article, c.1901, that gives his full name as “Henry Delactnack Debosnys (so called)”, which gives the impression to me that they didn’t know how to properly spell his name, but gave it their best shot. You can find it by Googling ‘delactnack’, for which there is only one hit.
[ http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/essex/essexnyjailledgers04.html ]
Here is a useful link. His second name was Delectnack
or Delactnack.
http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/essex/essexnyjailledgers04.html.
P.S. Last name was De Bosnys (separated and capitalized)
P.P.S. “may have been” De Bosnys.
something Masonic about the handshake?
He might have been lying about lying about his name. Bosny is an old family name and a place name. When this subject came up in February, I made a note that other pages were available on the (unrecorded) website but later not available. One was about the man — or someone with the same name in Europe. Another note: “He escaped and returned …” The author may have removed the pages because they were not relevant. ?
Ms. Farnsworth may have done further research. She deserves much credit for her initiative and work.
Hi Nick.
So I looked at those characters.
The key is written. In the second picture.
The author shows the importante of there characters.
It’s not terribly complicated.
LMF could be Looking (for) Masonry Friend. (Handshake picture)
The dots under HDDLMF match too.
Nick.
There is a small discrepancy. My friend Klaus Schmeh writes Year 1883. And you my friend. Writes year 1882.
For under standing the text. It is important to knew the key. The key is written in the second picture.
On the last line. Below is. The first character is the key.
The second character is .( Male a female principles). Two triangles. Against each other. When the triangles together. Created hexagram. Jewisch Star.
Other features shown. Origin and meaning characters.
To you you understand the characters . L.M.F.
So you must first be resolved. H.D.D.L.M.F.
This is a very simple encryption.
I looked also at La Buse cryptogram. ( Snakes)
These are the dates. 1663. 1674, 1730.
( Klaus + NSA ……:-)
boyfriend/Champollion/whatever: Debosnys was married in 1882, his new wife died in 1882, and he was hanged in April 1883. Hope this makes things clearer for you.
Nick. Thank you for the explantion. I already have it clear.
Two days ago I saw you o TV. ( Film of Venice).
So I told my wife. Look darling, this is my friend. And she said. It’s good that he’s a friend. Looks good.
———————————————————-
Debosnys.
Important is ( H.D.D.L.M.F) . A point below the emblem.
Let me explain. What is important is the value ( commas) of symbols.
(H=5). (D=4).(D=4)….(L=3). (M=4).(F=8).
And thou shalt number. ( Numbers + commas ).
( H,5 +4=9 ).(D,4+8= 12).(D,4+7= 11)
( L,3 + 6= 9). ( M,4 + 6 = 10). (F,8 + 5 = 13).
9+12+11= 32
9+10+13 = 32
32 + 32 = 64. 64 = 46. Jew reads from right to left.
1836 – 1882 = 46.
Henry Debosnys lived 46 years.
——————————————————–
Hand . Nick know Sixtin Chapel. Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Birdh of Adam. Adam stretches his hand to God. Departure from this world. He died and goes to God.
L.M.F.
F= 8+5=13. M=4+6=10. L=3+6=9.
13+10+9= 32 + 32 = 64. == 46. ( two hands).
Cryptogram is :
Jan 16. 1883
115 16 ( 1883)
Jah + 1- 6 = 5 ( 5 =E, 6= W).
JAHWE . ( Jehova ) . Jehowa = God in Hebrew.
Henry = Jew.
What do you say Nick. Is it good or is it bad. You, as a colleague on the cipher. You are sure to have an opinion.
Otherwisw, the Zen master’s, when I teach my students. Today, it better. Today I teach Czech Academy of Sciences. A different universities.
boyfriend/Champollion/etc: it looks like a cipher, and parts of it even behave like a cipher (particularly the poem). But… parts of it suggest to me that Debosnys is merging groups of letters (probably vowels) into composite glyphs. So it’s probably a non-trivial cipher.
Nick.
On one line. Character ( picture) Key and there dots. This author sayc. The number ( letter). consists of there symbols. Always thre symbols. Creates number. The number is also sign the letter. ( In the poem, which apparently is not poems. It is written. That uses substitution). Specifically, it is written . Royal substitution, King Jan ( John )).
Very interesting it is. Sentence next owls. ( Owl is a symbol of wisdom. Erudition and great knowledge).
He writes :
And I owl. Feather’s costume. Everything is asleep. And I bring the key Ré. ( Key Ré = Key King).
I also looked at the picture, which is a cube, a pitcher and a glass. Cube on three numbers. Sun. 66 or 64.
Picture woman :
A woman has to shoulder inscription. = O.L.U.I.R.P.
substitution = Frau co.
Frau = in German it means. Wife, woman , etc.
co = pronoun = she.
This is another very interesting cipher that I have just started looking at. I noticed something interesting on the ” Monographe . verse . ” page. When you look at this page to the left and below the Eagle, what appears to be the word, ” Greek “, with a ” ( ” parentheses next to it. This is written in mirrored reflection. This is a very interesting item of note, but I do not know what its significance is.
I was looking at L.M.F. and I think perhaps that it is the abbreviation for Leyland Masonic Fellow (Fellowship). This Masonic Lodge was founded on 12 December, 1890 and in the Province of Leyland, England. It is the Carnarvon Lodge No. 2376. However, I am not sure when Henry Debosnys was executed.
L.M.F., Leyland Masonic Fellow(Fellowship), West Lancashire Province in England. L….. M…… F….. .
Looking at this cipher, I noticed something of interest on the ” Monographe . verse . ” page. When you look at the page, to the left and below the Eagle is the word, ” Greek “, with a ” ) ” before the ” G “. This is in a mirror image.
Looking for my last posts here.
L.M.F. could be an abbreviation for LIBRARY and MUSEUM of FREEMASONRY.
Could L.M.F. be an abbreviation for LIBRARY and MUSEUM of FREEMASONRY ?
cf & Rick: an 8th August 1882 New York Times article gives his middle name as “Deletnack”, which has the right number of letters to fit the number of dots below the HDDLMF sequence, and so I am reasonably convinced that this is probably the correct spelling of his name. 🙂
Cheri L. Farnsworth’s book is available as an ebook through iTunes. It’s a fascinating read.
Much of his “autobiography” rings possible but the poetry…Much of it can be found via google. In particular, he seemed to like, enjoy and remember entire verses by Thomas Moore (1779-1852). “As letters some hand hath invisibly traced…” and several more can be found. Try googling this “And they beheld an orb, ample and bright Rise from the holy well and cast its light…” It’s in one of Henry’s poems…
The most intriguing of his pilfers, mentioned in Cheri Farnsworth’s book is the story about a duel…I can’t imagine where and how he found the story but it was published in the Japan Weekly Mail on June 3, 1882…titled ” A Mysterious Duel in 1770″ From an Old Manuscript.
I found it googling “gold-laced cocked hats, blue and green cloak, jack boots”.
“It stands upon an elliptic plain, formed by cutting down the apex of a mountain….” A description of where Henry grew up? Nope. It’s from “Eulogies on Adams and Jefferson”.
Second wife, Celestine existed. Her death is listed on ancestry as follows:
Name: Celestine Debosnys
Birth Date: abt 1839
Death Date: 5 Mar 1882
Death Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Age at Death: 43
Gender: Female
Race: White
Cemetery: Alms House
Marital Status: Married
FHL Film Number: 2057163
I checked the Alms House cemetery. She is not listed there but this may be an oversight of some sort. Not sure.
Rick – It’s his writing bleeding through from the other side of the page…Hence the mirror image.
“There stands a sentinel who spies our every action, hour by hour…”
Henry? Nope. Google is a friend.
He seems to have had a good memory for Thomas Tod Stoddart as well.
Also – He claims that he and his father lived in Giraumont, Oise from 1843 to 1845. Check out the population for that specific little area. Under 1000. Not available online but surely, one can find the census for this period???
Last comment and then good night… He claimed to be with the North Pole Expedition between 1848 until October 1850 under McClure. He would have been between the ages of 12-14. Surely, if a child was on board this expedition it would have been documented somewhere?
Misca,
McClure’s expedition was later, from 1850-1854. The dates do not fit. And here http://www.executedtoday.com/tag/henry-de-bosnys/ it’s described that HDD joined the expedition with Leclaire (unknown to me).
Other interesting stories about HDD are right. It seems that he was Colonel under general Bourbaki in the 2nd legion. Here is a drawing made by HDD himself. Take a look to the middle. There he stated that he was Colonel in the 2nd legion: http://www.oddthingsiveseen.com/2012/10/the-new-york-grimpendium-skull-and.html
I nearly forgot: NO, the tombstone on the right side does NOT explain ‘L.M.F’, but looks interesting, too.
Sorry for my bad english!
P.S.: The drawing I was taking about is picture 8 of 11 on the website!
Bernhard – HDD claimed that he been on a North Pole expedition under McClure from February 1848 until October 1850. McClure had been on an expedition (without success) in 1848 and then was sent out as a command for another better known expedition in January 1848. So…It’s possible that HDD is telling the truth about this.
Sorry…He was sent out for another expedition in January 1850.
On second thought, it is unlikely that he was there at that time as they were stuck. More specifically around the October 1850 date…”On October 21, Captain McClure embarked on a seven-man sledge trip north-east to confirm his observations of a Northwest Passage. McClure provided that confirmation upon his return on the 31st, having seen an unblocked strait to the distant Melville Island from a 600-foot peak (180 m) on Banks Island.”
Hm, only found an expedition of James Clark Ross in this timeframe. McClure served there as a first lieutenant. But cannot find a single source about the whole team joining him. HDD should be listed somewhere (with his REAL name).
Hello my friend Nick. 🙂
Should I request to you. Could you show the whole picture of the women.
I will write to you then. On what the line is. His real name.
Henry D.Debosnys is false name. ( 100 percent) 🙂
Misca,
Thank you for the information about the ink bleeding through the paper. I am still puzzled about ” L.M.F. “, and its meaning. It seems like some of the characters in the cipher might be musical notes when I look at it. Could the ” L.M.F. “, be related to LMF, 558 or other works by Wolfgang Amiade Mozart ? Mozart was a Free Mason. Could it relate to ” The Denunciation of Voltaire “, or Voltaire’s ” Paradise Achieved on Earth ” ?
Hi, all. I wrote the book mentioned above (Adirondack Enigma) which includes every document Henry was known to have created. Henry’s middle name, mentioned in the title of Chapter 1, is “Deletnack” (according to his own writings in jail). Newspapers of the time were notorious for spelling names incorrectly. I will try to find the CD or thumb drive with the images of all of his writings, codes, poetry and artwork that the museum gave me for the publisher (but I may have given the only copy to them, along with the manuscript). Although the original documents he created while awaiting his execution are too fragile for the general public to handle and are kept in storage at the museum, they scanned them carefully for me at the highest resolution in order to meet the publisher’s requirements. If I can find them, I will let you all know. Keep up the good work!
I agree with Christophe Maggi: The pair of holding hands seems to refer to a variant of the “masonic handshake”. Compare it to the “Pass Grip of Fellow Craft” as shown here: http://www.signology.org/masonic-symbols/masonic-handshake.htm
Other obvious symbols of freemasonry around (and within) the cryprograms, as well as some similarities to the pigpen cipher variations, reinforce this impression.
I also agree to the
M[xxxxxx] –> Masonic, Masonry
F[xxxxx] –> Fellow
theory.
Cheri: thanks very much for dropping by here. It’s nice that the (correct) ‘Deletnack’ spelling would seem to confirm the hypothesis that each dot under the letters represents a missing letter. Do you have any guess what “L.M.F.” (L[xxxxxx] M[xxxxxx] F[xxxxx]) stands for?
Not entirely coincidentally, a copy of your book landed on my doormat today, and so I’m about to launch myself into its depths. “Oh Henry!” 🙂
Please also let me know if you are looking for a permanent online home for the scans of the various Debosnys documents: I founded a cipher charity (The Cipher Foundation) earlier this year specifically for this kind of thing. There seems to be a lot of work yet to be done sifting through all the clues and misdirections Debosnys left behind, and having good quality scans and transcriptions would seem to be a very good starting point for all that.
Hi all good Friends. And, Mr. writer Cheri.
Today I looked into the museum Elizabethtown. There are a few pictures. As I found out. Thus, to determine the origin and name of ,,Henry,, very important. According to what is written on them. It comes from a European state. His real name. It is hidden (encrypted).
The goat and pumpkin. 🙂
The cipher writes. It is the royal cipher.
I like to help everybody. Your Champollone.
Cheri – So good to have you here. I ordered my copy of your book through ibooks and have read it and re-read it a couple of times. So much information!
Nick – It would be wonderful to have high resolution scans and discussions all in one place. (I have searched for the full collection in one spot and no one else seems to have it all posted together.)
It sounds quite plausible that Henry, his siblings (one brother at least) and his father may have all been in the French Foreign Legion.
His mention of (and association with) François Achille Bazaine is of particular interest given the latter’s career. Henry seems to have been in many of the same places at the same times and if he was associated with Bazaine, it could explain his abrupt departure from France at the same time that Bazaine was arrested. Bazaine was also a Marshal of France. (Yes the number of letters fits but I don’t have an “L”!)
This may all mean nothing but I thought I would share in case it triggers something for someone else.
“Why do we vainly weep at fate and sigh for life’s uncertain date? The light of gold can never illume the dreary midnight of the tomb.”
Odes of Anacreon, Thomas Moore
Maybe the L{egion’s} M{arshal} of F{rance} initiated Henry into the first degree?
I like your idea about the clusters. They remind me somewhat of the blocks in Hangul, each of which represents a syllable.
A good example of how names can evolve: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. So when and how did the Roosevelt family acquire the Delano ‘middle’ name ?
As far as I understand, even the name Franklin (as in Benjamin Franklin) could have evolved from a much earlier name of Francis — male — Saint Francis of Assissi …..
Pardon my mis-spelling —— “Miss Pelling” — female?
This is only a brief demonstration of my automatic reaction to ‘new’ names and no-men-cla-ture. In other words: How come we don’t have such a word as ‘wo-men-cla-ture” ??
Giraumont is a place but also is a pumpkin or gourd of sorts. He claimed to have spent a part of his youth in there…Now the bearded goat…alas! So many associations – so many there – including Dionysus which happens to sound a lot like his last name…
Debosnys drawings. On Page No. 9, there is a three dimensional drawing of a die with the numbers six, one, and five. Also, there is a drawing of a pitcher, and a glass that is half-empty or half-full. I believe that the die has the numbers on it because, 6+1=7, 6+5=11, 6=6 5+1=6 (“seven, eleven, or doubles” as in the game of Craps). I think that what Debosnys is saying is that in life you roll with the punches and the numbers that you roll. The glass is either half-empty or half-full depending upon whether you are a pessimist or an optimist, and this determines your personality type. The drawing of the pitcher is significant, as you can be the pitcher for other people and be a supplier of happiness for them by being positive and by doing positive deeds in life for others.
0,84% EE
0,65% SS
0,47% LL
0,32% NN
0,22% MM
0,21% TT
0,16% RR
0,12% PP
0,10% FF
CptEvil: thanks very much! May I ask where you found these values, or did you calculate them yourself?
Hi.
Cube says. X = 66. ( X = 66 , = W )
Cube : 6 …..1 – 5 = 4. ( 64 ). Jew reads from right to left. This means 46. Author us by saying that he lived to the age 46.
Substitution gematria . Number 6 = U,V,W,X. 🙂
Pitcher and glass = his real name.
Cube, pitcher, glass = ( lived 46, and name )
I only started looking at this tonight and my first impression is that he’s using a LOT of symmetry and rotation of symbols. I think that’s key, but that might be obvious to everyone else here? This is my first try at ciphers.
important : X = 66. The author tells you . The writing used substitution.
characters = numbers = numbers = characters = word. 🙂
Entropy: there’s a lot of symmetry, sure, but there’s also a hint (from line-terminal characters in the enciphered poem) that some of the rotations (like the ‘Venus’ glyph) might encode capital letters, or possibly accented letters. I plan to return to the enciphered poem before long, because Debosnys claimed to have supplied a decrypted version of it in Greek (which may or may not be true, as with everything else he wrote).
The drawing of a woman on the upper left of page No.9 has the word ” OLUMP ” on her left shoulder. ” OLUMP “, refers to a large rock in Yorubuland, Africa that is recognized as an ” Object of Central Worship “. This rock was located at the top a hill or ” Orisa “, and considered a hill diety or, ” OKE “. The people (Egba Catechist) dug the clay from underneath the ” OLUMP ” Rock to use to build their shelters with. This cause the rock to lean more and more as time passed. The people washed at the site of the rock as it formed a pit under it that caught water. The children played in this pool also. The rock eventually toppled and luckily for the locals, no one was hurt or killed. From that time on, the rock was considered a ” Motherly Rock “, as the people believed that the ” OLUMP ” rock would shelter them in time of trouble. They called it the ” Tutelary Deity of Olump “, and made animal sacrifice(s) to it. Originally, they were going to make human sacrifice(s) there. Did Debosnys consider his wife Elizabeth Wells as a Deity he worshiped when she was alive, but he wanted to sacrifice ? Is this why he wrote ” OLUMP ” on the right shoulder of the woman on Page No.9 ?
The word ” OLUMP “, was written on the woman’s left shoulder. I made an error about the location of the word ” OLUMP ” on the last sentence of my prior comment.
Page No.9, it has the number 516 in it just as on the die on this page. Perhaps this will be a starting point by which to decipher with.
I have started working on some more of this cipher. I believe that the last line of the ” L.M.F. “, page deciphers to, ” ULTIME “. This translates to English as, ” Last, final, or Ultimate “. I believe that H. D. Debosnys was saying his farewell to everyone. It was his final goodbye before being hanged. I am working on some more of the pages.
Already my friend Nick found out what it means.
Swoosh. A or snake drawing ??
It’s not that complicated. ( Snake = symbol time).
My great frend Nick. It has something to do with your hands ? That I can not write back. Or maybe it has banned. ( or it is prohibited). Several years looking for my friend who is a symbol snake. And I will write the result. La Buse , snake – date ( year).
So silent. Why ? No wants to be my friend ?
And Nick or wait a few years. As with crowns ?
Where I wrote several years ago. That the picture is Barbora Celski. ( Celská) Czech queen.
And then do an article where it is writes about Barbora Celská.
Champollion 🙂
Nick — See if you can find a combination of ciphers which would be making a comment such as ‘lotvan betteme char”.
I’m trying to recall the translation as being ‘thank you’. I’m probably far off the track; but the city of San Francisco California was visited and/or settled by persons from all over the world. My favorite hangouts were Cafe Minerva and City Lights Bookstore. Languages galore! Haig and Muriel: (musicians with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra).
Nick: I don’t usually contribute on various cryptological discussions, but …
Have any of you noticed that Henecos (accent marks over the E’s) last name is spelled:
DE BOS NOS TYA
It probably doesn’t make any difference; so I will end my 2 cents worth of info with
Nas drov nya !!!
bd
bdid1dr,
I looked up the meaning of , ” lotvan betteme char “. I found that it means, ” thank you for helping me move in “. However, I could not get a translation for ” char “. Danke.
Haig told me ‘char’ (maybe chah?) meant ‘tea’ (or beverage?) I still read lips and body posture to gain some understanding of what is being spoken. At one time in my life I was able to ‘read’ discussions of persons sometimes thirty feet away from me. Not that I made a habit of ‘onlooking’.
In more recent years, in my present home county, I made the acquaintance of my new neighbors. They each told me their love story. They had lived in Cyprus. As their children become ‘of age’, they take each child on a visit to their home country.
They each referred to the fable of Eurydice.
I’ll try to get back to the subject of this conversation. Perhaps I’m misreading Mr.
De bost nya’s name?
I emphasize that Mr. “Debosnys’ SPELLED HIS NAME AS DE BOS NOS TYA. Hmmm, perhaps I’m confused with some of the cross-posts. I shall double-check Mr. “Debosnys” spelling of his own name.
bdid1dr (who is getting more beady-eyed and more ‘wondering’ with every day)
bdid1dr: he spelt his surname in many different ways, depending on which language he was using and who he was trying to impress at the time. Note that even though the surname he was hanged with was officially “Debosnys”, this was in fact not his real name (which nobody yet knows).
If you’re interested in finding out more, I recommend getting yourself a copy of Cheri Farnsworth’s “Adirondack Enigma” (available very cheaply second-hand via bookfinder.com etc).
If you’re interested in finding out more, I recommend. ElizaBethtown ( museum).
There are a few pictures. In the picture three women and goat + pumpkin.
Goat + pumpkin = his real name . :-
You have to use your brain. Then it will go. Think more. It’s not a complicated cipher.
This is a very simple substitution cipher.
Champollion.
Blue eye. No voices. But substitution. De bosnys not investigate. Goat and pumpkin hunt. ( seek and explore). Or also . Jug and glass. Real name.
boyfriend..
I posted a bit about the pumpkin and goat earlier. He claimed to have lived for a time in Giraumont.
“Giraumont is a place but also is a pumpkin or gourd of sorts. He claimed to have spent a part of his youth in there…Now the bearded goat…alas! So many associations – so many there – including Dionysus which happens to sound a lot like his last name…”
Can you share more information?
Thanx for the ref to Cheri’s book. My father’s parents took their children every summer to the Adirondacks. My great-grandparents were refugees from the Potato Famine. So, I’m a mutt: Scots-Irish-German-French (maybe ‘a dab’ of Swiss: Ibele/Ybele).
My favorite cheeses are “La Vache qui rit ” and “Alouette”.
bdid1dr: I’m not sure I’d even recognize either of them as cheese. 🙁
Once again I’ve gone sideways to whatever mystery you’ve posted. Again, I apologize! I’ve just used my grandmother’s maiden name as an example. Her maiden name was Ybele or Ibele. Her husband called her Rosie Belle . On various church documents for their children, her name appears as Rosie (no middle/maiden name) Miller.
Good thing you can’t hear me singing “Alouette………..”
I have just taken another look at the ‘flying bird’ which appears at the top of Debosnostya’s ‘poem’: It reminds me of a Christmas song which verses were:
“The stork she rose on Christmas morn, and said unto her brood:
I now must fly to Bethlehem to view the son of God
And far she flew and fast she flew
and came she to Bethlehem……
Blessed babies all !
The dotted line is indicating that I’ve forgotten part of the verse ‘manger stall’ …
I don’t remember, even, when I first heard/or read this song.
That flying bird which appears on this page of your discussion sure looks like a stork to me. Note the crucifix the bird has in its beak.
Just in case you decide to take a Christmas/New Year’s vacation, I’ll wish you have a healthy and happy Christmas and New Year!
Hi, all. I’m only a curious amateur, but I hope that I can give you something to think about:
– Analyzing Debonys’ writting samples in Farnsworth’s book we can easly see that his Portuguese seems to be pure gibberish, however, some word are recognizable (bêco – “alley” – in its 19th century orthography), which confirms that he left Portugal during early childhood and had little contact with that languague since then.
– Also, his Latin is good enough. He wrote the Psalm 140 (“O Lord, take me out of the hands of sinners…”), which is consistent with a Catholic upbringing.
– His French mistakes are consistent with the mistakes usually commited by people who are familiar with French as a spoken language (i.e. the use of the participe passé instead of the infinitif as they both sound the same). So, he probably lived in France and didn’t learn French – only – as a foreign language.
– His French verses seems to be a sonnet (A-B-A-B-C-D-C-D-A-B-A-B-C-B) with 10 poetic syllabes in most of the verses.
– The next page cipher seems to be a 20-line poem which follows a clear poetic form, since the last character of the strophe is always repeated: A-A-B-B-C-C-D-D-E-E… and it probably follows poetic metre as well. I think that someone familiar with French poetry can help to solve the mistery! 🙂
PS: I’m sorry about my poor English.
Virgulin: thanks for that, it definitely helps! From that, it seems reasonably clear that Debosnys wasn’t completely fabricating his past, even if he was using it ‘flexibly’, let’s say. 😐
Hi, Nick! Thank you for your answer! About his identity, I have some thoughts about it: Apparently, Bosny is a Wallon surname. Debosnys said that, during his childhood, he lived with in Picardie (Giraumont and Compiègne), which is close from the Belgian border, so, given the migration patterns of the 19th century between Northern France and Belgium, it’s not impossible that De Bosny(s) was his real name or his mother’s maiden name – considering that his family had estates both in Portugal and Northern France, he probably had a Franco-Portuguese background.
Also, I’m quite intrigued about the poetic metre of his cipher. His verses have 12 or 14 characters (depending on what you call a character here, I’m not a cipher specialist). What intrigued me the most, however, is the first couplet (the first two verses). The first verse have 12 characters and the second, 13, also, right in the middle of both verses we have punctuation marks (in the 1st we have a period after the 8th character and in the 2nd we have a period after the 7th character). I’m not an expert on poetry so I’m speaking under correction here, but it seems to me that these verses are alexandrines (12 syllabes) and we can even see a “hémistiche” – that is to say, a break right in the middle of the verse (around the 6th syllabe).
Therefore, if you assume that each verse has 12 syllabes with it would be easier to break the code?
Virgulin: be careful when making assumptions about the reliability of his life story! Though he may well have come from Portugal to Picardie, I would currently be surprised if many of his other claimed life events were actually his.
I’ll have a look at his poetic meter when I’m back at home later, thanks very much for passing on your observations…
I’m probably making assumptions here, but I think that he had some information about his past that a typical adventurer wouldn’t have, and, he was a dying with nothing else to lose (outside his honour)… We should probably give him some credit…
Let’s see the facts: He said that he lived in a estate in Giraumont and went to a lycée in Compiègne. According to the book, the police didn’t find a city named “Giromont” in France, but a quick look into Google maps we can see that there is a small town named Giraumont about 15km distant from the city of Compiègne. He also talks about a mountain called “Clairoy”, which seems to be the mount Ganelon in a city of the metropolitan area of Compiègne called Clairoix. He seems to know a lot about this area and, as I said before, he seems to have some rudiments of Portuguese. During the 19th century there was virtually no economic migration of Portuguese to France and someone educated in various languagues probably had an aristocratic/wealthy background.
Curiously, I found a town in Picardie named Bony (a derivation from Bôny / Bosny / Bosnys is far from impossible). It’s also nice to point out that the “de” particle is mostly used in French as a nobiliary particle – like German “von” – which normally a toponymic. Thus, as I see, he lived most of his childhood in Picardie and later in life used a surname identified with the local nobility. In my opinion, he was well-born and probably used his mother maiden name or he married into the petty nobility. Finally, “Delactinack” can be “de La Something” and possibly a misspelling.
Virgulin: at the same time, the few external reports we have of him before his move to Essex County (as cited in Farnsworth’s book) make him sound dishonourable, self-obsessed, and frankly rather ghastly. The only person who reported Debosnys as being in any way honourable was Debosnys himself, which makes me think his “honourable man from a well-to-do family who was wrongly accused of murdering his wife” narrative should probably be filed along with his many other untruths.
I would agree with you that there was hardly any economic migration from Portugal to France in the 19th Century: but right now I’m far from convinced that this macro-observation supports any micro-aspect of his story. Debosnys was a selfish liar who lived in squalor and abused women, so be careful to look at his story with properly open eyes.
Ok, Nick, I have to admit that I’m probably going too far trying to find a noble in this horrid story. But, we need to admit he knows way too much the region of Compiègne (which proves at least that he lived for a moment there) and used a name of a local noble family.
Also, I think that it might interest you that I found an evidence that proves that – at least – he used a real noble name. I found on Google Books an 1836 Almanach (https://books.google.com.br/books?id=vAlfAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=pt-BR#v=onepage&q=ladignac%3B%20bony&f=false) that lists a number of “de Bony” people as the seigneurs “de La Dignac”, i.e., “de La Dignac-De Bony” or, when misspelt, Delactinack Debosnys.
Of course, it doesn’t necessarily proves that he was indeed what he claimed to be, but don’t you think Isn’t it too much effort for a pennyless 19th century adventurer who is about to be executed?
Finally, it’s also important to highlight that being “highborn” doesn’t necessarily means that he had higher moral grounds or a successful life, but, for me, it pretty much proves why we could read various foreign languages, why he knew poetic metrics, and why we could write a Psalm in Latin “par coeur”.
Virgulin: look, I really appreciate the effort you’re putting in, and I think you’re digging up all lots of good stuff – but all the while you see Debosnys working from a position of power, I’m pretty sure you’re misunderstanding him. For example, I’m 95% sure there is no such name as “Deletnack” (the middle name he gave in jail): so where did it come from? My best guess is that it was a posh-sounding French name he had [mis]heard but had never actually seen written down – in which case “de la Dignac” would be exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.
His florid story suddenly goes very thin about why he changed his name, though this was not too long before his first wife died, and again not too long before he moved to America. But reverse the first two events and the anagrammed timeline makes perfect sense: psychopath kills his wife, changes his name (picking a posh-sounding middle name etc), and runs away.
I don’t think there’s any doubt he was clever (though much of his poetry was copied line-for-line from existing poems): but the rest is just supposition for the moment.
Thank you for your answer, I’m sorry for being such a stubborn person (yes, I am!), but I’m still not convinced. He was familiar with French geography, made orthography mistaskes that only a native speaker would do and still he choses to spell a French-sounding name in a way that no Frenchman would ever recognize it. I find it hard to believe. I assume that he chose to spell his (fake) name in a more Anglo-saxon fashion when he migrated. It was common during the 19th century and some migrants from various parts of the world still do it until this very day.
Also, his Latin writting sample – the Psalm 140 – was handpicked for the occasion: it’s a prayer to God for protection against “evil people”. So, I assume, he was probably very familiar with the Latin Bible, which was and still is quite exotic even for Catholics.
Still, as you said, these are only suppositions for now. Keep up the good work! 🙂
Of course Virgulin. You’re going to do it properly, Henry was a nobleman. From the old European family. His real name is hidden, in the words of goat and pumpkin. Or the words – pitcher and glasses. ( ? glasces ? ).
Champollione.
repair.
pitcer + glass. ( cup )
Hi nickpelling,
Did you ever do a transcription of the Debosnys ciphers? I am about 1/3 of the way through one, but don’t want to reinvent the wheel if it’s not necessary.
I started with the cipher poem, then moved on to the block of text above the plaintext French poem. I think those two are in different languages, based on symbol frequency and inventory.
Wow Nick. Going back. I can’t understand why you would have completely shut down Virgulin’s research. Breathtaking. I didn’t see this until tonight when I went back to look.