Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones was founded after a dispute among Yale's debating societies over whether to induct members of the Phi Beta Kappa chapter, prompting William Huntington Russell to create a rival secret society modeled on German occult student orders. The year was 1832, the place was Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and the moment was one of fierce competition among campus literary and debating clubs. Russell had just returned from studying in Germany, where student corps and occult-leaning brotherhoods maintained tight rituals and fierce loyalty oaths. He teamed up with Alphonso Taft, a ambitious Yale graduate who would later serve as U.S. Secretary of War under President Grant and father a future president, William Howard Taft. Together, Russell and Taft built an organization that rejected the open debate format of Yale's existing societies in favor of secrecy, locked doors, and lifetime bonds.

The new society, also known as The Order, Order 322, and The Brotherhood of Death, drew directly from Russell's exposure to German secret student orders. The number 322 appears prominently on the society's emblem, and one tradition holds that it refers to 322 BC, the death year of the Greek orator Demosthenes. Each year, the group selected 15 Yale seniors through a process called tapping, historically conducted on Tap Day, a public campus event where juniors learned which senior societies had chosen them. In 1856, the society constructed its permanent meeting hall, a windowless building on Yale's campus known as The Tomb. The building has been expanded over the years, but its interior layout and rituals remain closely guarded by members. The Tomb became the physical heart of a network that would produce presidents, Supreme Court justices, and intelligence officials. Prescott Bush, tapped as a Bonesman in 1916, went on to become a Wall Street banker and U.S. Senator from Connecticut, establishing a multi-generational dynasty. His son George H. W. Bush was tapped in 1948, and his grandson George W. Bush followed decades later.

In 2004, both major-party presidential candidates, George W. Bush and John Kerry, were confirmed Bonesmen, drawing national attention to the society's reach. Skull and Bones remains the oldest existing senior-class society at Yale and is considered one of the "Big Three" along with Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head. The society continues to tap 15 seniors each year, and The Tomb still sits on Yale's campus, windowless and sealed.