“It adds to the seriousness of the belief, certainly,” says Judith Schiff, the chief research archivist at Sterling Memorial Library, who has written extensively on Yale history. But the letter shows that the story was no after-the-fact rumor. And if the Bonesmen did rob a grave, there’s reason to think it may have been the wrong one. Mead was not at Fort Sill, so his letter is not proof. ’19 (a new member, or “Knight”), have been deposited in the society’s headquarters (the “Tomb”): “The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club & the K-t Haffner, is now safe inside the T- together with his well worn femurs bit & saddle horn.” It announces that the remains dug up at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, by a group that included Charles C. The letter was written on June 7, 1918, by Winter Mead ’19 to F. “The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible is now safe inside the T -.”Ī former senior editor of the Yale Alumni Magazine has now discovered the only known contemporary evidence: a reference in private correspondence from one senior Bonesman to another. But Bones spokesmen have always dismissed the story as a hoax. An internal history of Skull and Bones, written in the 1930s and leaked to the Apache 50 years later, mentioned the theft.
The story was widely rumored but, despite the efforts of reporters and historians and the public complaints of Apache leaders in the 1980s, never verified. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers.īy Kathrin Day Lassila ’81 and Mark Alden Branch ’86ĭownload a PDF of this article as it appeared in the May/June 2006 issue of the Yale Alumni Magazineĭid Skull and Bones rob the grave of Geronimo during World War I? For decades, it has been the most controversial and sordid of all the mysteries surrounding Yale’s best-known secret society. The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. Yale Alumni Magazine: Skull & Bones (May/June 2006)
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