by Jason Fagone
a pencil writing on paper Ibid.
“racket ogre” “Fabyan May End Noises of City,” Aurora Beacon (Aurora, Illinois), April 24, 1921.
“Look through this telescope thing” “ ‘Lord of Riverbank’ Works in $100,000 Laboratory; Would Find Deafness Cure,” box 14, manila folder of newspaper clippings, NYPL.
26 one hundred or more Klein, “Building Supermen at Fabyan’s Colony.”
“Over there in that hothouse” Ibid.
“bobbed blonde hair” “Scientist Spends Millions.”
low-security juvenile prison L. Mara Dodge, “ ‘Her Life Has Been an Improper One’: Women, Crime, and Prisons in Illinois, 1835 to 1933” (Ph.D. diss., Univeristy of Illinois at Chicago, 1998), 535–41, 718–19.
26 cottage built with a donation Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 37.
required to undress Ibid.
“The results of our experiments” “Scientist Spends Millions.”
27 “in his effort to impress” Ibid.
told an Illinois historian Munson, George Fabyan, 50.
“the beams would creak” Ibid.
“recalled looking out the windows” Ibid.
“The staff in charge” Austin C. Lescarboura, “A Small Private Laboratory,” Scientific American, September 1923, 154.
28 an X-ray screen Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 36.
$750,000 worth of radium Munson, George Fabyan, 50.
discovered in 1895 “This Month in Physics History: November 8, 1895: Roentgen’s Discovery of X-Rays,” American Physical Society News 10, no. 10 (November 2001), https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200111/history.cfm.
“Every so often the world” Lescarboura, “A Small Private Laboratory.”
then disappeared ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed February 16, 2012, 9.
aristocratic appearance ESF autobiography, 3; ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 6.
29 lived and worked here ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed February 16, 2012, 9.
freshen up ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 1.
striking new clothes Ibid.
sat on the bannister ESF interview with Pogue, 6.
a slim man Ibid.
a neat bow tie Ibid.
reminded Elizebeth of Beau Brummell ESF interview with Pogue, 6.
polished his boots with champagne “Fashions of Hunting,” Baily’s Magazine of Sport and Pastimes 65, nos. 431–36 (1896): 163.
Swedish and Danish servants Transcript of ESF interview with Ronald Clark, handwritten note on page 7, March 25, 1975, box 16, file 22, ESF Collection.
30 chickens, ducks, sheep, and turkeys Munson, George Fabyan, 63.
prize-winning livestock Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 30.
head of the table ESF autobiography, 3.
J. A. Powell ESF interview with Clark, 5.
“cause the University of Chicago” “Here Are a Few Expert Suggestions for First Press Agent of U. of C.,” Chicago Tribune, September 5, 1909.
30 Bert Eisenhour ESF interview with Clark, 5.
a country bumpkin ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed 16 February 2012, 5.
The dominant personality that night ESF autobiography, 3.
31 “Mrs. Gallup had dwelt” Ibid.
men’s pajamas ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 7.
a pitcher of ice water . . . an enormous bowl of fresh fruit Ibid.; ESF interview with Pogue, 5.
assigned an employee I’m inferring this from the fact that Elizebeth doesn’t say in her autobiography or later recollections that Fabyan was her tour guide. I think if he had done it himself, she would have said that.
a new laboratory Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 3–4.
Professor Wallace Sabine Ibid.
ordnance building Ibid., 42; ESF interview with Pogue, 3.
known as the Villa Munson, George Fabyan, 25.
32 suspended from the ceiling on chains ESF autobiography, 5.
Taxidermized animals Personal visit to the Fabyan Villa Museum, Geneva, Illinois, March 19, 2015.
a life-size marble statue F. Edwin Elwell, Diana and the Lion (sculpture, 1893), displayed in the Palace of Fine Arts in the White City, acquired by George Fabyan after 1917, according to a placard in the Fabyan Villa Museum.
A curving path Munson, George Fabyan, 59–60; Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 27–28.
33 Tom and Jerry Ibid., 2.
flowing southward Wikipedia, s.v. “Fox River (Illiois River tributary),” last modified May 1, 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_River_(Illinois_River_tributary).
two bridges “Fabyan Estate Viewed from the Southeast,” map, in Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank; Munson, George Fabyan, 5.
bought the windmill in Holland As is often the case with Fabyan, the truth here is actually weirder than the legend. Fabyan didn’t buy the windmill in Holland; he bought it from a German craftsman in Lombard, Illinois, paying the modern equivalent of $2 million to take it apart, lug it across the prairie, and reconstruct it on the opposite bank of the Fox River. See “Fabyan Windmill,” Kane County Forest Preserve District, http://www.kaneforest.com/historicsites/fabyanwindmill.aspx.
Elizebeth sat down with Mrs. Gallup ESF autobiography, 2.
two or three hours Ibid.
oversize sheets of paper Several of these large sheets are preserved in box 14, NYPL.
33 rolled them out ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 7.
placed weights on the ends This is my own inference, from having handled these scrolls myself at NYPL. They really are like window blinds; if you don’t put the weights on them, they snap back into a scroll.
34 would be twofold ESF autobiography, 5.
popped in briefly ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 7.
another bowl of fresh fruit Ibid.
“a mixture of astonishment” WFF and ESF, The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined (London: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 210.
five thousand women George Morris, “Clothing Wet, Ardor Undampened, 5,000 Women March,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 8, 1916.
35 Water poured Ibid.
“right of each state” Republican Party Platform, June 7, 1916, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29634.
idolized the suffrage pioneers ESF League of Women Voters report on International “Equal Rights,” April 6, 1933, box 7, folder 5, ESF Collection. See also ESF to Miss Belle Sherwin, President, National League of Women Voters, April 14, 1933, box 7, folder 6, ESF Collection.
“No woman’s rights” ESF diary, January 29, 1916.
she reviewed her options ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 7.
CHAPTER 3: BACON’S GHOST
37 a worksheet of white paper “Actors’ Names—Shakespeare Folio 1623,” box 15, folder “Elizebeth Smith,” NYPL.
38 “The Names of the Principall Actors” The Bodleian First Folio: digital facsimile of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, Bodleian Arch. G c.7, http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/.
devout Christian WFF and ESF, The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined (London: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 189.
“Surprise followed surprise” Elizabeth Wells Gallup, “Concerning the Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon: Pros and Cons of the Controversy” (1902; Internet Archive, 2008), 60, https://archive.org/details/concerningbilite00gall.
“The sole question is” Ibid., 65.
39 The New Atlantis Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis (1627; Project Gutenberg, 2008), https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2434/2434-h/2434-h.htm.
39 Mark Twain believed it Mark Twain, Is Shakespeare Dead? (1909; Project Gutenberg, 2008), https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2431/2431-h/2431-h.htm.
So did Nathaniel Hawthorne Nina Baym, “Delia Bacon: Hawthorne’s Last
Heroine,” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 20, no. 2 (Fall 1994): 1–10, http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/emeritus/baym/essays/last_heroine.htm.
can be anagrammed WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 110.
2+1+3+14+13 Ibid., 179, 181.
40 Orville Ward Owen Ibid., 63.
most scientific and plausible yet WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 188.
The method had been demonstrated Francis Bacon, De Augmentis Scientarium, translated by Gilbert Wats (Oxford, 1640); pages relevant to ciphers in Wells Gallup, “Concerning the Bi-literal Cypher,” 23–27.
anything by means of anything Ibid.
the new alphabet Ibid.
41 don’t have to be a and b Ibid.
42 scoured photo enlargements “A CATALOGVE,” box 13, folder 11, NYPL.
Then she drew charts “Alphabets for the Catalogue of the Plays,” box 14, NYPL.
“Queene Elizabeth is my true mother” Elizabeth Wells Gallup, The Biliteral Cypher of Sir Francis Bacon Discovered in His Works and Deciphered by Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup, 3rd ed. (1901; Internet Archive, 2008), 166, http://www.archive.org/details/biliteralcyphero00gallrich/.
“Francis of Verulam is author” Ibid.
“Francis St. Alban, descended” Ibid.
“You will either finde” Ibid., 165.
43 her 1899 book Wells Gallup, The Biliteral Cypher, 1st ed.
a secret king WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 192–94.
clandestine society of engineers Richard Munson, George Fabyan: The Tycoon Who Broke Ciphers, Ended Wars, Manipulated Sound, Built a Levitation Machine, and Organized the Modern Research Center (North Charleston, SC: Porter Books, 2013), 103.
“Here are 360 pages” “Bacon-Shakespeare: Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup Throws New Light Upon the Mystifying Question—The Bi-Literal Cipher,” newspaper article, Box 14, clipping file in wooden box marked “California glace fruits,” NYPL.
Skeptics questioned the veracity WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 196–99.
43 “impossible to those” Ibid., 198.
traveled to Oxford, England Ibid., 202.
44 Mrs. Gertrude Horsford Fiske Ibid., 196.
Mr. Henry Seymour Ibid.
Mr. James Phinney Baxter Ibid., 224.
“acoustical levitation device” John W. Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank: Their Role in the Science of Architectural Acoustics (Woodbury, NY: Acoustical Society of America, 1997), 4–6.
Eisenhour couldn’t get it to work Ibid.
“The inheritance” Four-page typewritten draft beginning “The use and the commixture,” box 13, blank folder between folders 14 and 15, NYPL. The text in this draft appears similar to Fabyan’s published introduction in The First of the Twelve Lessons in the Fundamental Principles of the Baconian Ciphers, and Application to the Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Geneva, IL: Riverbank Laboratories, 1916).
a photo enlargement ESF describes the process she was taught by Gallup in Shakespearean Ciphers, 209, and ESF’s worksheets from her earliest deciphering tests at Riverbank—eight sheets total—are in box 15, folder “Elizebeth Smith,” NYPL.
45 particularly fond of puzzles ESF interview with Ed Meryl, March 1939, box 17, folder 14, ESF Collection.
She got stuck WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 210–11.
eight hours “Actors’ Names,” ESF wrote in pencil at the top of the worksheet, “8 hours’ work,” and marked the time and date of the solution: 10:30 A.M., June 5, 1916.
twenty-four-word plaintext translation Ibid.
46 Elizebeth always asked Mrs. Gallup WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 210–11.
Ragtime music “Col. Geo. Fabyan Soon to be a Miller De Luxe,” Chicago Herald, July 12, 1915, reprinted in Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 30–32.
a series of loudspeakers Ibid.
47 sisters from Chicago “An Investigation of the Newest Bacon-Shakespeare Cipher Theory,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sunday Magazine, July 9, 1916, in box 14, “The Ideal Scrap Book,” NYPL.
“Our experience at Riverbank” George Fabyan to chief of the MID, War Department, March 22, 1918, RG 165, Records of the Military Intelligence Division, Entry 65, box 2243.
looking glass WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 190.
attempting to complete Ibid., 208; Kate Wells to George Fabyan, n.d., box 14, NYPL.
resembled a piece of art Elizabeth Wells Gallup black notebook with red spine, box 14, NYPL.
47 small wooden boxes Various boxes of news clippings, box 13 and 14, NYPL.
48 “We lived hard and fast” ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed February 16, 2012, 10.
tiny salaries ESF interview with Pogue, 5.
minor idle rich Ibid.
invited Elizebeth to climb in ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed February 16, 2012, 5.
“no billiard ball” Mme. X, “A Visit to a Garden of Eden on Fox River,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 2, 1921.
49 head would blow off ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed February 16, 2012, 5.
afraid he’d catch cold Katie Letcher Lyle, “Divine Fire: Elizebeth Smith Friedman, Cryptanalyst,” unpublished manuscript, July 4, 1991, ESF Collection, two PDF files, 44.
leisurely rides ESF autobiography, 8–9; ESF interview with Pogue, 6.
sandhill cranes and red hawks Gerald M. Haslam, “The Fox River Settlement Revisited: The Illinois Milieu of the First Norwegian Converts to Mormonism in the Early 1840s,” BYU Family Historian 6 (2007): 59–82.
At twenty-five WFF was born September 24, 1891, so he would have been just shy of twenty-five; they were a little more than one year apart in age.
old, creaky structure Transcript of ESF interview with Marshall Research Library staff members Tony Crawford and Lynn Biribauer, Tape #5, June 6, 1974, 5.
teensy-weensy flies Ibid.
quickly, then die Ibid.
50 one bottle of flies into another I am relying on my memory of performing this exact type of Drosophila experiment in high school. Thanks to my AP Biology teacher, Mr. Anderson.
150 workers Norman Klein, “Building Supermen at Fabyan’s Colony,” Chicago Daily News, April 22, 1921.
Susumu Kobayashi Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 27.
Jack “the Sailor” Ibid.
Belle Cumming Ibid., 50.
Silvio Silvestri Ibid., 4, 26.
“Achieve success!” ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 10.
handed out shiny dimes Munson, George Fabyan, 6.
demonstrate how a snake Ibid.
wearing red diapers Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 29.
51 crops, genetics, and Francis Bacon Ibid., 13.
51 so did Lillie Langtry ESF interview with Clark.
Billie Dove Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 23.
Richard Byrd Munson, George Fabyan, 13.
the elegant Billie Burke Ibid.
met and talked with Lillie Langtry Ibid.
“star-complex and hero-worship” ESF narrative of Gordon Lim case, 1937–38, box 6, manila folder of Lim case material, ESF Collection.
buy a new wardrobe ESF autobiography, 6.
“so typically Fabyan” ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 14.
52 bugler who played reveille Munson, George Fabyan, 58.
an honorary one Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 22–23.
the Fabyan Scouts Ibid.
the Fox Valley Guards Ibid.
screaming at the offender ESF autobiography, 5.
stoking the coals Ibid.
steel I-beams Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank, 52.
seventy-five plows Klein, “Building Supermen at Fabyan’s Colony.”
Temple de Junk Ibid.
He published a book George Fabyan, What I Know About the Future of Cotton and Domestic Goods, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 1900).
one hundred blank pages Munson
, George Fabyan, 5.
53 One day he walked past Ibid., 7.
“a very bright man” ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 1.
longer than a newspaper headline ESF autobiography, 8.
repeat back verbatim Ibid.
showed Elizebeth a prototype ESF interview with Marshall staff, Tape #5, June 6, 1974, 5.
crawled on their stomachs Klein, “Building Supermen at Fabyan’s Colony.”
54 Professor So-and-So ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 8.
“We’ll get along fine” Ibid.
all expenses paid WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 205–6.
“useless Bacon-Shakespeare controversy” Letter on Bliss Fabyan & Company letterhead, September 1916, box 13, blank folder between folders 14 and 15, NYPL.
getting to the bottom “An Investigation of the Newest Bacon-Shakespeare Cipher Theory.”
“hard, cold facts” Letter on Bliss Fabyan letterhead, 1916.
disorient the guest WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 206.
55 convinced that the work was solid “An Investigation of the Newest Bacon-Shakespeare Cipher Theory.” In this article the Post-Dispatch reporter briefly describes meeting twenty-two-year-old Elizebeth: “Miss Smith told me that when she went to Riverside [sic] she did not believe there was anything to the bi-literal cipher theory. Now, she says, she hasn’t the slightest doubt.”
beginning to doubt WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 211.
John Matthews Manly Eric Powell, “A Brief History of the English Department at the University of Chicago,” September 2014, https://english.uchicago.edu/about/history.
“wrassle” ESF interview with Valaki, November 11, 1976, transcribed January 12, 2012, 12.
Manly pushed her on the shoulder Ibid., 13.
“Oh, my!” Ibid.
strained credulity WFF and ESF, “Elizabethan Printing and Its Bearing on the Biliteral Cipher,” in Shakespearean Ciphers, 216–29.
“See how she leans” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, ed. Brian Gibbons (New York: Bloomsbury, 1980), 2.2.23–25.
56 never once suspected WFF and ESF, Shakespearean Ciphers, 264.
“She could go through the texts” Ibid.
comparing herself to Galileo Elizabeth Wells Gallup, “Bacon’s Lost Manuscripts, A Review of Reviews,” box 14, clipping file in wooden box marked “California glace fruits,” NYPL.