Review of Jess Lourey’s “Salem’s Cipher”…

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The logic is ineluctably Vulcan: unsolved historical ciphers are cool… novelists like to lard their books with cool stuff… ergo here’s yet another cipher mystery novel to review.

The book’s author, Jess Lourey, is a Sociology/English professor: and if I told you that she also lectures in creative writing, you may have a good idea of where this is going.

Firstly, the bad stuff: anyone who doesn’t like the sound of reading all-italics flashback chapters telling how the two main young women protagonists shared ice cream and cookies and tried different hair styles when they were growing up together probably isn’t going to be able to last to the end of the book. I certainly had to grit my teeth fairly hard to get through some of these. These bits were more chick than lit, let’s say.

Also, anyone who finds it difficult to buy in to novels where the main characters are stalked across the country by spectacularly sadistic and implausible assassins (say, like The Da Vinci Code) may find their copy of the book involuntarily sailing across the room at some point (personally, I found page 79 quite challenging in this respect).

The good news is that Lourey has done a fair bit of cipher mystery lurking and looking, and presents the Beale Ciphers reasonably accurately (I doubt I’d be spoiling anyone’s read if I said that various of the protagonists make their way to a well-known vault in Virginia).

Overall, though, the plot plays out like an all-female National Treasure remake, complete with national monuments, suitably appropriated historical figures, and more hidden compartments than you can shake Nic Cage’s torso at (there’s even Alcatraz in there for Cage completists). Though rather than Science vs Religion or Black vs White or Blue vs Red or even Humans vs Insects (Philip K. Dick short story reference), Lourey pitches Evil Rich Men vs Idealistic Poor Women as her two Conspiratorial axes. Which is nice.

Cryptologically, Salem’s Cipher itself (one of the protagonists is called Salem) appears at the start, where Salem figures out a way of using Charles Babbage’s work to power quantum cryptology. But this promptly disappears, making it not so much a Chekhovian gun as a Checkhovian RPG. But perhaps it will reappear in Book 3. (Book 2 is set in Europe, but hopefully will manage not to reprise Garfield 2.)

Is Salem’s Cipher worth reading? To me, it feels like a slightly awkward cross-over, a chick lit feminists-save-the-world spin on the clunky mainstream crumb-trail cipher mystery Americana chase thriller genre: and if that description doesn’t put you off, you should probably get yourself a copy ASAP. 🙂

Who is your Voynich best girl / nymph?

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In the somewhat 2d world of anime fandom, fans (whether Weeaboo or Wapanese) express their like / preference / undying love for a specific female character within a given anime / show / political party / whatever by describing them as their ‘best girl‘, e.g. “Kim Pine = Totally. Best. Girl. Ever.”, or “Angela Merkel ist meine Best Girl” (possibly, though perhaps only if you happen to think German politics is a bit two-dimensional).

Are Voynich researchers as shallow as this? I wouldn’t like to say. But if you asked me for my personal vote for Voynich best girl (ok, “best nymph”), it would have to go to one of the three crowned zodiac nymphs.

There’s Miss Cancer (where I think the crown is clearly a later addition)…

voynich-crown-in-cancer

…Miss Leo (where the crown seems original)…

voynich-crown-in-leo

…and Miss Libra (where I think the crown is also a later addition)…

voynich-crown-in-libra

Of the three, Miss Leo would appear to be the real deal, a specific ‘red letter’ day within the zodiac calendar that the author was so strongly attached to that he/she felt compelled to mark its date with a crown while composing the page (as if to prove my point, you can even see the red paint within the crown). And who, later, then also felt compelled to try to visually conceal its presence (to a certain degree, admittedly) by adding two spurious crowns to other non-red-letter day zodiac nymphs.

Hence Miss Leo is my Voynich best girl, original crown and all. And why ever would anyone think a different nymph could be better than that? I mean, what kind of Voyanese loser would say that one of those poxy balneo nymphs was his/her Voynich best girl? Now that would be completely insane, right? :-p

The Franklin Sugar Refinery…

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To summarize, we have a 1716 treasure map from Philadelphia that leads to a particular small brick building in Cherry Garden, leading downwards from the southeastern corner of Society Hill to the Delaware River.

In the early 18th century, Cherry Garden was (as its name suggests) gardens, apart from a single building: while in the 21st century, the whole area East of South Front Street is now empty, save car parks and grass verges that were cleared during the construction of the Interstate I-95. All of which might possibly trick you into thinking that this land has always been empty of buildings.

But if you did, you’d (of course) be wrong. And here’s why…

The 601 Block

In the previous post, we saw how Commodore Stephen Decatur (1779-1820) grew up on what is now South Front Street’s 600 block. According to this 1935 source, Stephen Decatur’s “father’s home in 1801 was No. 261, now No. 611 South Front Street”. (p.137)

More recently, there was also the (now long-demolished) John Hart House at 601 South Front Street:

The same source also has a nice picture of 603 South Front Street:

The 701 block

As late as the 1840 map of Philadelphia, Shippen Street only went as far East as Front Street:

But by the time the area block appears in Ernest Hexamer’s 1860 map of Philadelphia, the long block has been divided into the 601 block and the 701 block. Here, the 701 block is – just like the 601 block a few feet to the North – full of tightly packed houses:

Hence we can see that this is not a nice Roman villa under an undisturbed field scenario: rather, there is already a nice load of archaeology to potentially be contended with here.

The Franklin Sugar Refinery

When a sea-change in business hit Philadelphia in the second half of the 19th century, this part of the city was transformed: and the incoming tide was one of white sugar, or (rather) the need to build a refinery to produce white sugar. This was the Franklin Steam Sugar Refinery (later the Franklin Sugar Refinery): there’s a nice 2013 article on the company courtesy of The Inquirer (philly.com), which includes details of how the company kept its refining tricks secret:

[…] in order to mystify New York refiners eager to learn its trade secrets, it was equipped with a Willy Wonkalike room crammed with pipes and valves that was entirely a sham; the valves would regularly be opened and closed to no actual purpose, their job simply to throw industrial spies off the scent.

In the 1872 map, we can see the changes to the building on Front Street, together with the Widow Maloby’s Tavern on the opposite corner (700 South Front Street):

We can also see clearly the relative offset between Widow Maloby’s Tavern (at 700 South Front Street) and the northwestern corner of the Franklin Sugar Refinery building complex:

By 1886, we can see (again, thanks to Ernest Hexamer) the sugar refinery’s building sprawl:

Here’s the matching ground plan, which includes lots of cellarage because the site was built upon a slope going down to the Delaware:

And here’s a closeup of the 701 block in 1886, with South Front Street on the left:

When The Molasses Run Dry…

Of course, despite the sugar rush, all good things must come to an end: and so the buildings on South Front Street became warehouses in the 20th century:

The building itself was demolished in 1967, and the by-now-more-than-somewhat-run-down area was flattened and cleared to make way for Interstate I-95: which is the state in which we find it now.

So, Where Do We Start The Geophys?

From my perspective, it seems as though the 701 (top left) corner of the site goes right over the site of the building facing Shippen Street in the early maps. So it looks to me as though the 701 block was built right on top of the cottage we’re looking for. There may just be a small piece of the original sticking out to the North, but this is perhaps a little unlikely.

So there doesn’t seem to be much hope of finding the cottage. However, locating the top-left corner of the factory building would be a nice confirmation of where things were (though note that we also know that South Front Street was 50′ wide at this point).

As a reminder of the original letter:

9 – Measure exactly 45 foot from that Porch along the lane due South
10 – there you will find a Stone post in the ground if not moved which may
11 – be easily done by accident or perhaps by makeing a Neu fence : 3 foot
12 – or perhaps 4 foot west from the s[ai]d stone is a Chist 4 and a half foot long 2 foot
13 – broad and half foot and the same depth accordingly being about 6 foot from the
14 – bottom of the Chist to the surface of the Ground.

As described here, it seems to me that the “Stone post” / “Neu fence” is almost certainly a boundary marker: and it also seems likely to me that the 50′ width of South Front Street is something that was measured out right in the earliest days of the town. As a result, all the building work to the East of South Front Street would have been carried out strictly behind that boundary marker.

Hence I think there is a good chance that the “Chist” described in the letter was buried beneath South Front Street itself, in the days long before tarmac and modern road construction. And who’s to say that it isn’t still there? 😉

How to find the Cherry Garden cottage…

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Thanks to the help of commenter Thomas, we now have an excellent online source for the brick-built Cherry Garden cottage, courtesy of the American Philosophical Society Museum and the Ghost Gardens, Lost Landscapes? exhibition put together by Erin McLeary.

The cottage in Cherry Garden

This contained not only John Fanning Watson’s drawing of the cottage from about the 1820s (“courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia”)…

…but also its location, 39° 56′ 24.6474″ N, 75° 8′ 37.86″ W : “Now 313 S Front St, vis-a-vis Shippen St”.

Note that modern Philadelphia’s Bainbridge Street was old Philadelphia’s Shippen Street: and that Shippen Street originally stopped at Front Street. Hence the (now archaic) use of vis-a-vis, “in a position facing a specified or implied subject“, i.e. ‘on South Front Street facing Shippen Street’.

So we can see that by 1796, the Cherry Garden plot had been divided into lots and sold (as per the 1756 advertisements in the Pennsylvania Gazette I mentioned before). This was presumably broadly the same state in which John Fanning Watson saw the remains of the site.

As a sidenote, the only online record I found relating to 313 S Front St is from an 1859 letter written by a John McKay in Michigan, who gives the address (presumably) of where one of his sons (also called John McKay) is living in Philadelphia (all courtesy of the Irish Emigration Database). (Oddly, Google seems to find this page only occasionally.). The modern block numbering would be 613 South Front Street.

But before we move on, let’s briefly look a little closer at the (unannotated) 1796 map:

It seems highly likely, then, that John Fanning Watson was talking about the remains of the single house we can see on the 1796 map immediately facing Shippen Street, whose south wall (appears to have) lined up with the north wall of the house on the southwestern corner opposite it.

Google Streetview

In modern-day Philly, Bainbridge Street cuts a little across Front Street, before abruptly screeching to a halt in front of the Interstate I-95.

There are no houses of any sort East of South Front Street, just a small car park, with grassy verges on both sides:

The three houses on the west side south of the crossroads are all from the eighteenth century (all built by Nathaniel Irish), and so weren’t there in 1716 when the letter was written:

700 South Front Street – 1764 – Widow Maloby’s Tavern (on the right)

702 South Front Street – 1767 – Capt. Thomas Moore House (in the middle)

704 South Front Street – 1763-1769 – Nathaniel Irish House (on the left)

A (now long-gone) house on the same block as (old block numbering) 313 S Front St was (new block numbering) 611 South Front Street, which according to the 1909 “Publication No. 5” of the City Historical Society of Philadelphia (it says here) was “the home of early U.S. naval hero [Commodore] Stephen Decatur” (1779-1820), famed for his attacks on Barbary pirates:

Decatur was widely believed to have been the greatest, bravest President the US never quite had (he died in a duel at 41). Here’s the Philadelphia historical marker put up in his honour:

In one of those awful coincidences historians like to both notice and note, Shippen Street was renamed Bainbridge Street in honour of Commodore William Bainbridge (1774-1833), who was also Stephen Decatur’s second in his fatal duel. According to naval historian Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, Bainbridge was so jealous of Decatur’s success that he rigged the rules of the duel (only eight paces!) in order that both duellists were likely to be killed.

Anyway, now you know that here we (virtually) are on Bainbridge Street, within a few feet of where Decatur grew up.

So… Why Don’t We Just Go Dig, Then?

Slow down! I’ve only managed to cover the history of the site around the area. I’ve got lots to write up about the site itself yet (coming up next), which should help inform the whole industrial archaeology thing. Once that’s all in place, perhaps a bit of geophys would indeed be nice. 😉

John Fanning Watson on Philadelphia’s pirate treasure…

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Before revealing the precise modern equivalent of the location near Cherry Garden where the Society Hill treasure was allegedly buried 😉 , I think we need to take a brief detour into the world of Philadelphia’s pirate treasure lore.

Our guide is the ever-detailed (and not infrequently skeptical) (1830) “Annals of Philadelphia, being a collection of memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of the city and its inhabitants, from the days of the Pilgrim founders” compiled by John Fanning Watson. For all its flaws, Watson’s book is surely the first (wary) port of call for anyone sailing the murky depths of Philly’s early history: and remains a comfortable lapdog of a read (though the reader’s eye inevitably tires after each few chapters).

In short, think of Watson’s Annals as a Philly equivalent of Captain Charles Johnson’s “A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates”, and you shouldn’t go too far wrong. 🙂

Captain Kidd

Watson, having done much research on the subject, seems in no doubt of Captain Kidd’s connection to Philadelphia, or at least to Kidd’s crew:

A writer at Albany, in modern times, says they had the tradition that [Captain] Kid once visited Coeymans and Albany; and at a place two miles from the latter it was said he deposited money and treasure in the earth. […]

In 1699, Isaac Norris, sen. writes, saying, “We have four men in prison, taken up as pirates, supposed to be Kid’s men. Shelly, of New York, has brought to these parts some scores of them, and there is sharp looking out to take them. We have various reports of their riches, and money hid between this and the capes. There was landed about twenty men, as we understand, at each cape, and several are gone to York. A sloop has been seen cruising off the capes for a considerable time, but has not meddled with any vessel as yet, though she has spoken with several.”

The above quoted letter, in the Logan MS. collection, goes to countenance the prevalent idea of hidden money. The time concurs with the period Captain Kid was known to have returned to the West Indies. It may have been the very sloop in which Kid himself was seeking means of conveying home his treasure, and with which he finally went into Long Island sound to endeavour to make his peace. Four of the men landed at Lewistown, were apprehended and taken to Philadelphia; I saw the bill of their expense,” but heard no more of them, save that I saw that Colonel Quarry, at Philadelphia, was reproached by William Penn for permitting the bailing of the pirates; some were also bailed at Burlington. — Vide Penn’s letter of 1701.

Blackbeard

Watson is even more taken with the much-claimed connection between Blackbeard and Philadelphia:

Mrs. Bulah Coates, (once Jacquet,) the grandmother of Samuel Coates, Esq. now an aged citizen, told him that she had seen and sold goods to the celebrated Blackbeard, she then keeping a store in High street, No. 77, where Beninghove now owns and dwells a little west of Second street. He bought freely and paid well. She then knew it was him, and so did some others. But they were afraid to arrest him lest his crew, when they should hear of it, should avenge his cause, by some midnight assault. He was too politick to bring his vessel or crew within immediate reach; and at the same time was careful to give no direct offence in any of the settlements where they wished to be regarded as visiters and purchasers, &c.

This of course gives me an excuse to put in the famous picture of Blackbeard that everyone loves so much:

Watson adds:

There is a traditionary story, that Blackbeard and his crew used to visit and revel at Marcushook, at the house of a Swedish woman, whom he was accustomed to call Marcus, as an abbreviation of Margaret.

(Incidentally, there’s a 1735 plank-built house in Marcus Hook that the owners like to try to associate with Blackbeard and his friend Margaret, just so you know.)

All of which helps to support stories telling of buried pirate treasure in Philadelphia, though the spookier the better (obviously):

An idea was once very prevalent, especially near to the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, that the pirates of Black Beard’s day had deposited treasure in the earth. The conceit was, that sometimes they killed a prisoner, and interred him with it, to make his ghost keep his vigils there as a guard “walking his weary round.”

Treasure Hunter Tales

Watson counted treasure hunters among his friends, though again with a spooky edge:

Several persons, whose names I suppress, used to go and dig for hidden treasures of nights. On such occasions if any one “spoke” while digging, or ran from terror without “the magic ring,” previously made with incantation round the place, the whole influence of the spell was lost.

And treasure hunters back then were apparently just about as gullible as their modern versions:

There was a prevailing belief that the pirates had hidden many sums of money and much of treasure about the banks of the Delaware. Forrest got an old parchment, on which he wrote the dying testimony of one John Hendricks, executed at Tyburn for piracy, in which he stated that he had deposited a chest and a pot of money at Cooper’s Point in the Jerseys. This parchment he smoked, and gave to it the appearance of antiquity; calling on his German taylor, told him he had found it among his father’s papers, who got it in England from the prisoner whom he visited in prison. This he showed to the taylor as a precious paper which he could by no means lend out of his hands. This operated the desired effect.

Soon after the taylor called on Forrest with one Ambruster, a printer, who he introduced as capable of “printing any spirit out of hell,” by his knowledge of the black art. He asked to show him the parchment; he was delighted with it, and confidently said he could conjure Hendricks to give up the money. A time was appointed to meet in an upper room of a public house in Philadelphia, by night, and the inn-keeper was let into the secret by Forrest. By the night appointed, they had prepared by a closet a communication with a room above their sitting room, so as to lower down by a pulley the invoked ghost, who was represented by a young man entirely sewed up in a close white dress on which were painted black eyed-sockets, mouth, and bare ribs with dashes of black between them, the outside and inside of the legs and thighs blacked, so as to make white bones conspicuous there. About twelve persons met in all, seated around a table. Ambruster shuffled and read out cards, on which were inscribed the names of the New Testament saints, telling them he should bring Hendricks to encompass the table, visible or invisible he could not tell. At the words John Hendricks “duverfluchter cum heraus,” the pulley was heard to reel, the closet door to fly open, and John Hendricks with gastly appearance to stand forth. The whole were dismayed and fled, save Forrest the brave. After this, Ambruster, on whom they all depended, declared that he had by spells got permission to take up the money. A day was therefore appointed to visit the Jersey shore and to dig there by night. The parchment said it lay between two great stones. Forrest, therefore, prepared two black men to be entirely naked except white petticoat-breeches; and these were to jump each on the stone whenever they came to the pot, which had been previously put there. These frightened of the company for a little. When they next essayed they were assailed by cats tied two and two, to whose tails were spiral papers of gunpowder, which illuminated and whizzed, while the cats whawled. The pot was at length got up, and brought in great triumph to Philadelphia wharf; but oh, sad disaster! while helping it out of the boat. Forrest, who managed it, and was handing it up to the taylor, trod upon the gunnel and filled the boat, and holding on to the pot dragged the taylor into the river — it was lost!

For years afterwards they reproached Forrest for that loss, and declared he had got the chest by himself and was enriched thereby. He favoured the conceit, until at last they actually sued him on a writ of treasure trove; but their lawyer was persuaded to give it up as idle.

And other pirate treasure hunter stories float in the Philly ether:

As late as the year 1792, the shipcarpenters formed a party to dig for pirates’ money on the Cohocksinc creek, northwest of the causeway, under a large tree. £ frightened off. And it came out afterwards that a waggish neighbour had enacted diabulus to their discomfiture.

Pirate Treasure

Some claim to have found Blackbeard’s pirate treasure in Philadelphia, but without anything to support them:

Colonel A. J. Morris, now in his 90th year, has told me that in his early days very much was said of Blackbeard and the pirates, both by young and old. Tales were frequently current that this and that person had heard of some of his disgovered treasure. Persons in the city were named as having profitted by his depredations. But he thought those things were not true.

South Front Street, not far from the Delaware (“as you are well aware”), was specifically named as a place where treasure was dug up:

T. Matlack, Esq. told me he was once shown an oak tree, at the south end of Front street, which was marked KLP, at the foot of which was found a large sum of money. The stone which covered the treasure he saw at the door of the alleged finder, who said his ancestor was directed to it by a sailor in the Hospital in England. He told me too, that when his grandfather Burr died they opened a chest which had been left by four sailors “for a day or two,” full twenty years before, which was found full of decayed silk goods.

(As an aside, Cipher Mysteries readers may perhaps remember the meta-story of treasure locations being divulged by dying sailors which Ron Justron’s “Great Lost Treasure” claims revolved around: here’s an early-ish example.)

Philadelphia pirate treasure, previously hidden underground, tended to turn up when people dug cellars, such as at the Cock inn in Spruce Street:

Samuel Richards and B. Graves confirmed to me what I had heard elsewhere, that at the sign of the Cock in Spruce street, about 35 years ago, there was found in a pot in the cellar a sum of money of about 5000 dollars. The Cock inn was an old two story frame house which stood on the site of the present easternmost house of B. Graves’ row. A Mrs. Green owned and lived in the Cock inn 40 to 50 years ago, and had sold it to Pegan, who found the money in attempting to deepen the cellar. It became a question to whom the money belonged, which it seems was readily settled between Mrs. Green and Pegan, on the pretext that Mrs. Green’s husband had put it there! But it must appear sufficiently improbable that Mrs. Green should have left such a treasure on the premises if she really knew of it when she sold the house. The greater probability is that neither of them had any conception how it got there, and they mutually agreed to support the story, so as to hush any other or more imposing inquiries. They admitted they found 5000 dollars. It is quite as probable a story that the pirates had deposited it there before the location of the city.” It was of course on the margin of the natural harbour once formed there for vessels. In digging the cellar of the old house at the north east corner of Second street and Gray’s alley they discovered a pot of money there; also some lately at Frankford creek.

Certainly it was once much the expectation and the talk of the times — for instance, the very old two-story house at the north east corner of Second street and Gray’s alley, (i.e. Morris’ alley) originally built for Stephen Anthony, in digging its cellar they found there a pot of money, supposed to have been buried by the pirates. This story I heard from several very aged persons.

Treasure Maps

Finally, Watson sees no reason why there should not also be treasure maps or “hints”, and sees the idea as “natural”, though it does not sound as though he himself has seen one (for he would surely have gleefully included it in his Annals):

When we thus consider “their friends” thus “lodged among us every where,” it presents additional reasons for the ideas of buried treasure of the pirates once so very prevalent among the people, of which I have presented several facts of digging for it under the head of Superstitions. They believing that Blackbeard and his accomplices buried money and plate in numerous obscure places near the rivers; and sometimes, if the value was great, they killed a prisoner near it, so that his ghost might keep his vigils there and terrify those who might approach. Those immediately connected with pirates might keep their own secrets, but as they might have children and connections about, it might be expected to become the talk of their posterity in future years that their fathers had certain concealed means of extravagant living; they may have heard them talk mysteriously among their accomplices of going to retired places for concealed things, &c. In short, if given men had participation in the piracies, it was but natural that their proper posterity should get some hints, under reserved and mysterious circumstances of hidden treasure, if it existed.

A saunter through Philadelphia’s Society Hill to Cherry Garden…

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Following on from the 1716 treasure map letter I posted about a few days ago, it’s now time for a Cipher Mysteries historical saunter through Philadelphia. And why not?

The Blue Anchor Inn

“…at the South End of the town of Philadelphia is a Gutt of water with a few Planks Layd over it which the Inhabitants call a drau Bridge:…”

The history of Philadelphia begins with William Penn landing at the Blue Anchor Inn in 1682/1683: liking the dock and the creek beside it, he decided that this was where a “Greene Countrie Towne” should be built, between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. Here’s an old newspaper reconstruction of what the Inn originally looked like:

Before very long (1691 is claimed), a drawbridge was erected across Dock Creek to allow boat access to the little harbour and foot access to the quickly growing city. Here’s a 1908 illustration by James Moore Preston (courtesy of blog page Early Philadelphia Inns and Taverns: Part 2:

Though far less colourful, Frank Hamilton Taylor’s (1922) drawing tells much the same story:

Dock Creek

Philly H20: The History of Philadelphia’s Watersheds and Sewers notes that “For many years after the creek was covered over the neighborhood was known as the “Drawbridge,” and as late as 1834 we read that the Drawbridge lot rented for $600 per year.”

Dock Creek was subsequently covered over for the simple reason that everyone put their sewage into it (and so it stank to high heaven). In the last few years, however, it has been (virtually) reclaimed by artists and historians, in the form of a walk along its former course being set out as an Art Installation by Winifred Lutz. The following nice map also shows the breweries and tanneries set up beside the creek, tipping their noxious wastes away:

Society Hill

“…a little to ye Southward of that is a Rising Ground called Society Hill…”

As noted in The Pennsylvania magazine of history and biography, Vol. XLVII (1923), this area was first settled in the early 1680s by The Free Society of Traders…

[…] which in 1682 was granted a charter by William Penn, and soon set up a warehouse and office in the infant city, on the west side of Front Street, near the south side of Dock Creek. It was located at the foot of the hill known as Society Hill and thence its city tract of about one hundred acres extended westerly in a tier of lots from Front Street on the Delaware to Front Street on the Schuylkill River. A map of the surveyor Thomas Holme made about 1683 shows its location.

Thomas Holme was William Penn’s surveyor general, and his map (which I found here) looked like this:

Hence Society Hill sat right at the heart of Philadelphia’s early history, though the Society it was named after closed in March 1723. Robert Morris Skaler’s (2005) “Society Hill and Old City” seems to be a pretty definitive reference on this subject (the first 33 pages are on Google Books), but I’m waiting for my copy to arrive in the post. 😉

All the same, Society Hill completely lost its shine during the nineteenth century, as fashion moved the City’s Centre ever westwards: many of the neighbourhoods turned into appalling slums, with W.E.B.Dubois’s famous (1899) sociological study “The Philadelphia Negro” focused on the City’s Seventh Ward, the long thin rectangle running West of the lower half of Society Hill all the way to the Shuylkill River. By the 1940s, the Hill was in almost complete disrepair.

And yet since then, the modern history of Society Hill is a rather strange thing. The area was consciously refashioned into Colonial-era kitsch, where rich owners with salvageable homes were given low-interest loans to make them nice again, poor owners were kicked out and their houses sold on to rich owners to salvage, and everything else was flattened and turned into Colonial retro townhouses. Brick pavements and faux-old streetlights added to the overall Disneyfication: the newly fictionalized Society Hill became a film set, populated by the genteel. (The 1770-era [but internally modernized] townhouse at 232 Spruce Street went on sale in 2017 for $899,000.) And now, while Philadelphia’s demographics are getting younger, Society Hill’s demographics are getting older, richer and whiter: so as neighbourhoods go, it’s a curious socio-economic and real-estate bubble that the City consciously inflated.

Just so you don’t get too taken in by it all if you happen to go on a walking tour. 🙂

Cherry Garden

“…upon which hill is a pretty good Brick house with one apple Orchard: But called Cherry Garden…”

According to an entry in the online Philadelphia Encyclopaedia, William Penn’s intention for the town was for each plot to comprise at least half an acre, with the house placed right in the middle, so that “there may be ground on each side for Gardens or Orchards, or fields”. The entry continues:

A number of wealthy Philadelphians did create gardens in their large city lots, as well as at their country estates outside the original city limits, and many Philadelphians visited these gardens in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. […] The first early gardens fully accessible to the (paying) public in the city, however, were associated with entertainment and refreshment rather than science and education. These included the “Cherry Garden” in the area that later became known as Society Hill […]

John Fanning Watson’s (1830) “Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in Olden Time” mentions this explicitly:

“Society Hill”, a name once so prevalent for all the region south of Pine street, even down to the Swedes’ church, has been discontinued for the last sixty-eight or seventy-eight years. In olden time we used to read of “Cherry Garden on Society Hill”, the “Friends’ Meeting on Society Hill”, the “Theatre (in 1759) on Society Hill”, “George Wells’ place on Society Hill, near the Swedes’ church”, &c. The name, we take for granted, was derived from the “Free Society of Traders”, who originally owned all the land “from river to river, lying between Spruce and Pine streets”.

A History of The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (1929) tells us a little more about the Cherry Garden:

“Cherry Garden” down on Society Hill (all the section south of Pine Street) was famous in its day as a place of recreation. It had large grounds, facing on Front Street opposite Shippen Street, occupied half the square and extended down to the river. There was a small one-story house where refreshments were sold. In 1756, it was advertised for sale as the property of Harrison. When it was at its height it was said to have had “an abundance of every shrubbery and greenhouse plant.”

The quote at the end was from Martin I. J. Griffin’s (1907) “Catholics and the American Revolution Vol.1” (p.330):

The Clifton family owned also “The Cherry Garden” on Society Hill described in Watson’s Annals [p. 494].”

However, the Clifton family ownership is from around the time of the American Revolution. Before that, the sale is listed in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 23rd September 1756 and 7th October 1756:

To be sold by the subscribers, living in Gloucester county, New Jersey, the following lots of land, situate at Cherry – garden, in Society Hill, in the city of Philadelphia, viz, one bank lot, fronting Water – street, thirty feet, and extending back to Front street ; and one water lot, fronting the said bank lot on the lower side of Water street, and extending into the river Delaware two hundred and fifty feet. For title, and terms of sales enquire of Samuel Harrison, and John Hinchman.

So it would seem that Cherry Garden was a substantial plot at the time of the letter, though with but a single-storey house selling refreshments to treasure hunters 😉 . Clearly this house was the place to which the letter refers. But where in Cherry Garden was it?

The House in Cherry Garden

In fact, John Fanning Watson’s account (p.494) tells us reasonably clearly where the house was:

“Cherry Garden,” down on Society Hill, in the parlance of its day, was a place of much fame as a place of recreation. It was a large garden fronting on Front street vis-a-vis to Shippen street, occupying half the square and extending down to the river. The small house of one story brick, in which the refreshments were sold, is now standing with its dead wall on the line of Front street. In 1756, it was advertised for sale as the property of Harrison, who advertised to sell off some of it in lots “on Front and Water streets to the river in Cherry Garden.” Colonel Morris spoke of it as he remembered it in the time of Clifton as its owner — said it had abundance of every shrubbery and green-house plant. See a picture of the house in my MS. Annals in the City Library, p. 282.

Furthermore, Watson adds elsewhere that:

There was once “the hill” near the “Cherry Garden,” inclining from the southeast corner of South and Front streets towards the river. The houses still standing along Front street in that neighbourhood have their yards one story higher than Front street.

Note that the original (and rather ‘raw’-feeling) 1830 edition of Watson’s book has very different illustrations, and many curiosities and oddities that seem to be absent from the later edition. But that doesn’t contain a copy of the drawing of the house in Front Street in Watson’s Annals, “p.282”.

So, it would seem that the trail leading to the drawing of the one-storey brick house in Front Street in Cherry Garden ends in Watson’s MS Annals in the Historical Society at the City Library. My best guess is that this contained the original full-length version of his Annals prepared for the Philadelphia Historical Society, that was subsequently printed in 1830 (though with fewer illustrations and some less important sections removed, etc). However, I don’t seem to be able to find that anywhere online. So this is where I’m blocked for the moment. 🙁

Therefore… could I please put out a request for some researcher better versed than me in Philadelphia research minutiae to please help out here? Are John Fanning Watson’s “MS Annals” (the ones in the Historical Society in the City Library, and to which he repeatedly refers to in his 1830 book) scanned and/or online anywhere? Thanks!

Mental Floss does the Beale Ciphers…

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I know, I know: this is the same Mental Floss that also publishes articles like 10 Things You Might Not Know About Jeff Goldblum (sample fact: “My first wife and I would bring our juicer on planes, and we’d do a carrot cleanse for a week, until I’d turn orange and all my poop would be orange”).

But bear with me on this, because the long-form article by Lucas Reilly on the Beale Ciphers / Papers / Treasure that just came out is really good. No, it’s really good.

And I’m not just saying that because Reilly quotes me a few times: he covers all the important ground at a nice even pace without getting overly technical. As part of his research, he even tried to walk the Beale walk a bit (though without actually hiring a backhoe), and even got the desk-full-of-documents Beale treatment when he visited the Bedford County Museum and Genealogical Library in Montvale. Which is nice.

Reilly also managed to dig up a couple of Beale decryptions I can’t remember seeing before, including this one mentioned in a Washington Post article from 1984, attributed to an “M.C.D.”:

ONE RAN TO COVER THE TOP / HIT THE
RAM NUB ON THE TOP OF THE NEST /
BEST I TRY HEAT / SEE CALL TO FIT
TOY SO HAT NOD IF FULL / I WILL BE
IN THE CUT FIND AND DIG IT … GO WIN
YOUR SLICE AND BE LONG IN LOVE

…as well as this one:

LEND AN EAR / I LEARNED A
TRADE TO READ FINE ART OF ROTE
… / I FEEL GREAT / I FIND TEN
TON ORE IT IS STORED ON NORA,
NORMAN, BROWN FARM / ROAD RUN
AROUND RED BARN.

Incidentally, the Washington Post article (“Legendary Treasure Quests” by Hank Burchard, 5th October 1984) also give this decryption:

CEMETERY OFF GAP / TOOK RIDGE / PINEWOOD 4 M /
NORTH TOP OF HOLCOMBS ROCK / RIGGED A BOOM OF LOGS /
GOLD ORE HID / BARGE HOLDING TUBS /
CABOCHONS FACE LIDS / BUFORD VA /
VAULT CACHE OF GOLD / TB.

Is there no end to the fun people can have staring at a blank wall? Apparently not, it would seem.

But all the same, you can now tell all your friends the important life lesson you learned from the Beale Ciphers: Go Win Your Slice And Be Long In Love. Enjoy! 😉

Király and Tokai’s Rohonc Codex decryption…

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Hot off the Cryptologia presses comes news of Levente Zoltán Király & Gábor Tokai’s (2018) paper “Cracking the code of the Rohonc Codex” (Cryptologia, 42:4, 285-315, DOI: 10.1080/01611194.2018.1449147). This is part of a long series of papers and articles the two authors have been putting out that try to explain different technical aspects of the Rohonc Codex decryption they have been developing (though they initially started independently), and which Hungarian uber-crypto-guy Benedek Láng has favourably mentioned a number of times.

I now have a copy of the paper (which Lev Király kindly passed me) and have spent the last few days combing over it. Even though what they have done is thoroughly fascinating, I have to say that what emerges for me overall is a very mixed picture. I’ll try to explain…

Rohonc Codex codicology

Though at least half of the account of the history of research into the Rohonc Codex they present (pp.286-288) somewhat immodestly discusses their own findings and conclusions, Király and Tokai have clearly put a lot of effort into trying to understand the physical object itself (pp.288-293). Though a few of their codicological inferences are based on their interpretations of the pictures and text (and a number of their decryptions are inserted directly into the text as fact), most are based on exactly the kind of careful observation and physical insight you would hope to see.

Codicologically, what emerges more or less exactly mirrors what we see in the Voynich Manuscript:
* bifolios missing, swapped, and moved around arbitrarily, coupled with other sections that seem to have stayed intact.
* misleading foliation that was added long after bifolios had been shuffled
* misleading marginalia and notes added by owners who did not know what the text said
* some places where the picture was drawn first, others where the text was written first
* rebuttals of unjustified claims that there are no corrections
* rebuttals of unjustified claims that it must surely be a hoax
* and so forth.

As a result, I think that Király and Tokai’s codicological analyses imply that the Rohonc Codex has almost all the same physical and historical structures that the Voynich Manuscript has (niceties relating to textual analysis aside).

Cracking the Rohonc Codex’s numbers?

Király & Tokai point (pp.296-297) approvingly to Ottó Gyürk’s (1970) paper “Megfejthető-e a Rohonci-kódex?” [Can the Rohonc Codex Be Solved?]. Élet és Tudomány 25:1923–28, and extend the set of (what looks like) number instances that Gyürk found:

The underlying number pattern they infer from this sequence is as follows:

While their proposal that this is a number system that works like Roman numerals but where the ‘6’ has a shape instead of the ‘5’ (“V”) is possible, I have to say that to me it seems unbelievably unlikely (e.g. there’s nothing remotely like it in Flegg’s “Numbers Through the Ages”). It also seems likely to me that the text we see includes copying errors, and it may well therefore be that the specific sequence they highlight should have begun “III”, “IIII” (or probably the more idiosyncratically medieval “iij”, “iiij”) rather than “IIII”, “IIIII” as written. Instead postulating a 1-6-10 numbering system to explain this away seems too implausible to me.

What seems far more likely is that this is a kind of very slightly bastardized Roman numerals where you can write 5 both as “IIIII” and as “V”, in the same way that you can validly write 4 (additively) as “IIII” and (subtractively) as “IV”. Hence I’m currently far from convinced, based on what they have presented so far, that they have managed to nail down this basic part of the number system as well as they think they have.

They then proceed to construct an even more arcane number system which they assert encodes dates as if they were in Arabic numerals, but where the thousands digit and hundreds digit are reversed (i.e. what is written as “5160” actually means “1560”, where 1560 is a magic number “which is dated by old Christian tradition to the year 33 CE”):

When Gábor Tokai [discovered] the number 5166 next to the drawing of the three kings (21r) and 5199 (058r09 − 10) in the vicinity of drawings of the resurrection of Christ (56v, 59r), he affirmed that the numbers denote years.

OK, I can see how the logic arguing for this is so going to be so complex that it would need to be written up in a separate paper. But I can also see how I don’t believe what they have presented here at all: so I’m going to say that I’m sorry, but even though a good part of the underlying codicology and analysis is very likely highlighting some good stuff that needs working with and developing, I don’t believe the reconstructed number system claimed here is yet correct. 🙁

Cracking the Rohonc Codex’s code?

The paper tries to explain (p.293) what the authors have found (i.e. that ‘Rohoncese’ is a code, though one so complex that’s clearly not easy for them to explain why or how, which is why it is going to take several papers and several years of their effort) and what they are aspiring towards with their decryption efforts:

The principles of our criteria and method of codebreaking may seem banal to the reader, but we must emphasize them because of the bad reputation gained by the amateur researchers of the codex. Furthermore, as many examples in our next paper on the “wobbliness” of the code will show, the writing system is far from being simple and clean. We must affirm that these results are not due to methodically deficient research but to the writing itself, which was analyzed with painstaking care and strictness.

We demand that one symbol signify one thing, and whenever there is any digression from this principle — either by more symbols signifying one thing or one symbol signifying more things — it must be sufficiently supported by argument. Our case is difficult because the codex has codes signifying words of a language, and words behave less regularly than letters. In every natural language the presence of homonyms and synonyms creates ambiguity. Yet we demand that even this amount of ambivalence in our proposed solution be supported by evidence.

OK. So how does Király and Tokai’s actual decryption measure up to the lofty ideals they set for themselves here? Well… after a long series of caveats, concessions and defensive clauses, the whole section concludes (p.295):

Thus the plausibility of our proposed solution is difficult to specify. The core of our reading has such strong inner and outer evidence that we may affirm that it stands beyond doubt. The rest is of various degrees of certainty, which is indicated wherever necessary.

Their text then includes long readings of sections taken from the Rohonc Codex where tiny groups of letters are read as individual codes, which are in turn interpreted as individual words, all supporting each other. As a single line example, here’s the first part of the section that they believe is the Lord’s Prayer (p.303):

At the same time, the decryption never goes below the level of individual words. Are these pronounceable? What language are they derived from? How does this fit into the tree of European languages? These are all parceled off to be answered in future papers.

Probably the Best Part of the Paper

For me, the most persuasive-looking of all the authors’ codebreaking details relates to the Parable of the Talents:

Here’s the same section in the Rohonc Codex (bearing in mind that the real text runs from right to left, whereas the transcription they present runs left to right), where I have highlighted the first line blue, the second line red, and the third line purple:

Despite having an O-Level in Religious Studies, I’d be the first to admit that my knowledge of the Bible is patchy. But even I knew that the above wasn’t quite how it was told in Matthew 25:14-30. Rather, the three servants got 5, 2, and 1 talents respectively, which is why they write up the “3” (actually 2) talents as [sic] on p.300:

14 For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property.
15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.
16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more.
17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more.
18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.

Or, if you prefer, here’s the same section in the Latin Vulgate:

14 sicut enim homo proficiscens vocavit servos suos et tradidit illis bona sua
15 et uni dedit quinque talenta alii autem duo alii vero unum unicuique secundum propriam virtutem et profectus est statim
16 abiit autem qui quinque talenta acceperat et operatus est in eis et lucratus est alia quinque
17 similiter qui duo acceperat lucratus est alia duo
18 qui autem unum acceperat abiens fodit in terra et abscondit pecuniam domini sui

So: if their claimed block equivalence to the first half of Matthew 25:15 is indeed correct (and there are arguments both for and against this), perhaps the right question to be asking is whether there is there some odd Mitteleuropa tradition whereby the number of talents in this parable is not 5/2/1 but 1/3/5?

So, What Does Nick Think About All This?

In the best footballing tradition, Király and Tokai’s paper is (as the above should have made abundantly clear) a game of two very different halves.

By which I mean:
* the first 45 minutes stand as testament to the authors’ codicological hard work, almost all of which I’m convinced will stand as really strong, freestanding research (but which would have been further strengthened by unpicking various assertions that derive from their decryption). I would further include here the grounds from which they inferred the existence of a numbering system (though not the actual numbering system they describe itself)
* the second 45 minutes revolve around an attempt at a decryption that occasionally seems to work at a word level, but without ever getting to the bottom of what is actually going on (i.e. in terms of letters / grammar / structure etc).

The authors approvingly summarize (p.287) Benedek Láng’s view of the Rohonc Codex:

Láng’s greatest achievement was his attempt to identify the type of the cipher or code. He saw three options as equally possible: a monoalphabetic cipher with homophones, nullities, and nomenclators; stenography; or an artificial (“perfect”) language.

And yet, just as with the Voynich Manuscript, reducing the question of a writing system to precisely three mutually exclusive pigeonholes is an intellectually barren starting point, one which the astute Láng himself would surely be uncomfortable with. There are many more overlapping possibilities to consider, such as abbreviating shorthand (i.e. where words are contracted or truncated), alphabets based on pronunciation, and so forth.

Personally, I would be entirely unsurprised if the codicological analysis Király and Tokai carried out that led to their finding even half a line of a block equivalent (i.e. the the first half of Matthew 25:15) will turn out to be the first glimmer of a Rohonc “Rosetta Stone”: and for that all credit should be due to them. However, I don’t yet believe that the rest of their analysis has born the tasty fruit they think it has: and so there will likely be many more twists and turns for them to go through in their quest to decrypt the “Hungarian Voynich”.

The Society Hill Treasure Map…

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Jenny Kile has recently turned up an interesting item on her blog: a 1716 letter describing the location of buried treasure in Philadelphia, originally uncovered by Historical Society of Pennsylvania historian Daniel Rolph in around 1996 or so.

According to her commenter Buckeye Bob, though Jenny probably found it in a 2016 Philly Voice article, it was 2008 when the details first came out in an HSP blog entry. Though the original page is still there, it has mysteriously lost the image of the treasure map letter it once proudly displayed.

But no longer! Thanks to the Internet magic of the Wayback Machine, I was able to find a 2012 grab of the post including the image, and so here it is (click on it to see a much larger scan):

So (of course) here’s my first pass at a transcript:

Society Hill Treasure Map Transcript

(The main peculiarity of the spelling is the use of ‘u’ where we would now use ‘w’.)

01 – D[ea]r
02 – brother. Having said to you in my 2 Letters all that was nesisare it now
03 – remains that I give you the proper directions which is as followeth, V[i]z that
04 – at the South End of the town of Philadelphia is a Gutt of water with a few –
05 – Planks Layd over it which the Inhabitants call a drau Bridge: a little to ye
06 – Southward of that is a Rising Ground called Society Hill: upon which hill is
07 – a pretty good Brick house with one apple Orchard: But called Cherry Garden
08 – Observe at the front of the S[ai]d house which fronts the west is a porch :-
09 – Measure exactly 45 foot from that Porch along the lane due South
10 – there you will find a Stone post in the ground if not moved which may
11 – be easily done by accident or perhaps by makeing a Neu fence : 3 foot
12 – or perhaps 4 foot west from the s[ai]d stone is a Chist 4 and a half foot long 2 foot
13 – broad and half foot and the same depth accordingly being about 6 foot from the
14 – bottom of the Chist to the surface of the Ground. It contains 15 hundred peases of
15 – Silver or peases of Eight. So called and 4 times the fill of my hat in Rials and
16 – Double rials otterways Bit and double bits: and further contains 250 quadruple pistole
17 – peaces Comonly Caled Double Double Loans: perhaps ther may be a feu more or
18 – les: for time would not alou of ane exact reaconing
19 – N B: if you wil not folou my my Advice and go there with the first opportunity
20 – I order you Imediatly to burn this direction and both my Leters and send me
21 – a particular act and direct for me Exactly according to my direction. But Be
22 – sure to put the Leters in the post office and trust not to your Whistling acquaintances
23 – for I expect your Imediat answer
24 – St Jago de la Vigo in Jamaica
25 – May 14 1716
26 – PS: I have in my 2 letters to you Re[……..] actions you can make posibly

(Please feel free to suggest corrections and improved interpolations, I shall be happy to update the above accordingly. Thanks to John Comegys, James Comegys, milongal and Greg Stachowski for their corrections and comments [which I have incorporated], much appreciated!)

Finding The Treasure…

The various landmarks mentioned in the letter do make historical sense, according to the Philly Voice article:

[…] Philadelphia historian John Fanning Watson, who died in 1860, referenced the drawbridge, Cherry Garden and a “precipitous and high bank” in Society Hill in his 19th century manuscripts detailing the city’s history, Rolph said. The drawbridge and creek running along Dock Street are included on old maps, but by the 1680s – some three decades before the letter was written – many brick houses were being constructed in the area.

“I get the impression it had to have been buried many years before,” Rolph said. “By 1716, it was built up along the docks and all down that area.”

Moreover, professional treasure hunter Dennis Parada of Clearfield PA claims to have identified the exact location where the chest would be: “at one of two locations along Second Street between Spruce and Pine streets”.

The key problem is that there are all sorts of legal issues concerning treasure hunting in Philadelphia, so nobody is sure who would own the treasure if it were to be found. And so there seems to be little appetite for digging anything up to have a look, a process that might well destroy much but gain little.

All the same, it’s a great story, right? 🙂