The Beale Papers
In 1822, Thomas J. Beale gave Robert Morriss, an innkeeper in Lynchburg, Virginia, a metal box with some papers in it. He told Morriss not to open the box unless Beale or one of his men did not return in 10 years time. When Beale did not return, after 23 years, Morriss opened the box. Inside were three ciphertexts that allegedly told where Beale hid a treasure in an undisclosed location in Bedford County, Virginia. Beale was never seen again, and decades later, just before Morriss died, he gave the ciphers to a friend. That man spent the next twenty years trying to decipher the texts but was only successful with one. He then published all three texts in a pamphlet that he sold to the public in 1885.
This case is “unsolved” for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the question of whether or not Thomas J. Beale was even real has come up. Looking at U.S. Census records, in 1810, there were two people named Thomas Beale--one in Connecticut and one in New Hampshire. However, that census was lacking any information from 7 states, one territory, Washington, D.C., and several counties in Virginia. The 1820 Census shows a Captain Thomas Beale who fought in the 1815 Battle of New Orleans and was originally from Botetourt County, Virginia, and a Thomas K. Beale in Virginia but there was still information missing from 3 states and a territory. Therefore, there is no real concrete evidence that the Thomas J. Beale of the eponymous Beale Papers ever existed.
Next, there is the issue of authorship. Even if Beale did exist, was he the one to have written it? One particularly outlandish but fun theory is that Edgar Allen Poe was responsible for the ciphers. However, this seems quite unlikely given that Poe’s death predates the publication of the pamphlet by 40 years. It is also possible that the friend of Morriss’ made the whole thing up in order to sell the pamphlets through another man, James B. Ward. Ward is similarly difficult to pin down, with very little public record of him. Interestingly though, he was on paper as owning the home that Sarah Morriss, Robert Morriss’ wife, died in in 1863.
Using a book cipher of sorts with the Declaration of Independence as the key, the unnamed friend was able to only solve the second cipher. This code only described what the buried treasure was like. It reads as follows:
I have deposited in the county of Bedford, about four miles from Buford's, in an excavation or vault, six feet below the surface of the ground, the following articles, belonging jointly to the parties whose names are given in number three, herewith:
The first deposit consisted of ten hundred and fourteen pounds of gold, and thirty-eight hundred and twelve pounds of silver, deposited Nov. eighteen nineteen. The second was made Dec. eighteen twenty-one, and consisted of nineteen hundred and seven pounds of gold, and twelve hundred and eighty-eight of silver; also jewels, obtained in St. Louis in exchange to save transportation, and valued at thirteen thousand dollars.
The above is securely packed in iron pots, with iron covers. The vault is roughly lined with stone, and the vessels rest on solid stone, and are covered with others. Paper number one describes the exact locality of the vault, so that no difficulty will be had in finding it.
The fact that the other two texts remain as yet unsolved also calls into question their authenticity. Those who have studied the ciphers claim that there are not the kinds of patterns or statistical characteristics one might expect from a coded text from English. It seems that if one to decode the cipher, it would lead to gibberish. Additionally, having three ciphers seems quite odd considering pretty much everything one needs to know is already apparent in the second cipher. What could possibly be in the first or third texts?
Regardless of whether or not it is real, there are still mysteries surrounding the ciphers.
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