Book of Secrets Research Thread - Adam Savage Tested Review

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This John Tyler entry is fairly obscure, and it took me forever to find out what it said and who it was addressed to. It is seen on the left side of the Book of Secrets.

It says: “I wanted your attention a few days since to the charge made in the Examiner by Mr. H—. He has the form or columns of the Times…”, and it ends with Tyler’s signature “J. Tyler.”
The document is a letter from John Tyler to his son Robert Tyler, written at Sherwood Forest (Tyler’s Virginia plantation) on October 27, 1848.
In it, Tyler alerts his son to an accusation printed in an Examiner newspaper by an individual he identifies only as “Mr. H.” (likely a political adversary) and notes that this person has obtained material from The Times (another news outlet)
I'm currently trying to find a better copy to place in my book rather than the blurry screenshot from Adam's review.

 

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This is an excerpt from the Theodore Roosevelt section. I call it the snowing heavily page. I always find it interesting when Ross takes the original page, which in this case was a lined diary page, and photoshops it to look like it was written into the Book of Secrets.

 

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And yet another page which has taken me years to locate has finally been found. This page which is found as James Madison entry in the Savage Book Review is actually from Colonel George Nicholas, written to James Madison. The entry states:
I expected to have done myself the pleasure of calling on you from the last Orange court but was disappointed in going there. I received the remonstrance and had it copied for I found that any change in it must be for the worse. One hundred and fifty of our most respectable freeholders signed it in a day. I have sent copies to the counties that I mentioned in my last. I am with regard and esteem Dr. Sir Yr. Obdt.

G. Nicholas
It's days like this, that I love doing the research. I'm one step closer to getting all the filler pages in from the SA prop.

 

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Here is another insert from Ross MacDonald's version of the prop book. This reference image can be seen on the PropStore site for one of Ross' books that went up for auction..
This is an entry about the last day of Taft as recounted by Ike Hoover. Irwin Hood “Ike” Hoover, the White House usher and electrician who served for 42 years, kept a detailed account of inauguration day 1913. In a **61-page handwritten memoir** dated March 4, 1913, Hoover describes President Taft’s departure and Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration in intimate detail. Attached is the page from the propstore site and the historical document used to create the page. Four lines of the letter were repeated and placed at the top of the entry.

 

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In this entry, you can see a spread of pictures taken of the Book of Secrets from the Propstore auctions. This particular spread has an entry from James Garfield on the left and an entry from Rutherford B Hayes on the right, which is kind of strange, since Hayes came before Garfield. Nevertheless, this is SA in Ross' book. The spreads also have the inserts of the US Naval Telegram for the Titanic and the Time Dispatch article for the Titanic. The Garfield entry is from a draft of his Inaugural Speech, and the Hayes entry is from his eulogy for Edward Bok. I've also seen these inserts beside the Calvin Coolidge plank page as well.

 

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Today's entry does not come directly from Adam's book review but from the PropStore. There are two pics from two different props that sold at auction. The letter is by Warren G Harding and appears once with the Roswell Alien insert, and the other is with the Calvin Coolidge Olmek Plank entry. The letter itself comes from a letter from Warren Harding about a speaking engagement where he was overpaid. The letter starts halfway down at "speaking at North Conway" and continues on the next letter. Ross combined the two to make the entire page entry.

 

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Todays entry is an envelope I've been studying for awhile. It can be seen in Adam's video when there is there are three inserts, The Shadow Square, an envelope, and a picture of Charlotte Lewis-Brown. I believe the main address says:
Mr. and Mrs. F. H. Scheuneman
144 N Wilson Ave
Brooklawn, New Jersey
Gloucester City, P.O.
and the return address probably belongs to the son and says:

Sgt. F. H. Scheuneman
Co. A, 136th Inf.
Ft. Lewis, WA 98438

I got this information from the stamp from Tacoma, Washington and the date, which I believe is 1963. They would have started using zip codes in 1963 and the nearest USAG is right outside of Tacoma in Fort Lewis.

UPDATE: Evidently, this envelope was not in the original book created by Ross, it was placed in after the movie, probably as a result of the original Miss Jacqueline Chenault envelope being lost or missplaced. The picture of Charlotte Lewis Brown was also not in the original book.

 

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This entry is seen in some pages taken from an auction by the PropStore. The book has an entry on the left side from Theodore Roosevelt and and an entry on the right from Taft. I only had a couple of words to go by ended up finding the pic in an auction. The letter says. "I have your kind invitation to attend a dinner of the Plymouth County Committee at Nantasket Beach on Sept. 6th. I should be glad to come be present but the fact is my vacation does not end until September 15th and I need it all - I may have to break into it long enough to make a speech during the last week in August in Littlefield's district in view of the fight the Gompers contingent is making on him. Later on if I am anywhere near your District I shall be glad to help but the date you fix is impossible. I am sorry."TAFT served as Secretary of War in Theodore Roosevelt's Cabinet from 1904 to 1908, when he received the Republican nomination for President.

 

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This entry/spread holds the Tin Type baby photo, which has a fairly detailed shot of information in the corner of the photo. The page it sits upon is on the right side of the book, with the left page being blank. This is page 5 of Benjamin Harrison's Inaugural Speech draft. Took me days to figure this out. Page 4 of the speech is two pages after with the John Tyler's Chaplain entry and the Olmec plank/Newspaper clippings inserts. Yet again, pages are out of order and not even with the correct President. William Henry Harrison was before John Tyler, not Benjamin Harrison.

 

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This entry is also seen in the DVD where the Prop Master is thumbing through the book. This entry has the Vice President Chambers handwritten Insert. Both pages are from Benjamin Harrison's Inaugural speech. Respectively, Page 1 and page 2 of his speech. I've attached the pages and the reference text I used to determine the pages.

UPDATE:
So as page order stands with the Benjamin Harris Speech pages:
Blank Page/ BH Page 5 Inaugural Speech/Tin Type Baby Pic
BH Page 1 Inaugural Speech/BH Page 2 Inaugural Speech/ VP Chambers handwritten note
BH Page 4 Inaugural Speech/John Tyler Chaplain Entry/Olmec Plank/Newspaper Clippings

 

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As I've been researching pages, I've also been researching inserts, and one insert that everybody knows is called the Tintype Baby photo. I was able to snag a good reference photo from the DVD and fix some of the edges and text. I will apply it to heavier cardstock like in the pics, age, and weather, and will trim the curved edge with a card puncher. I will also put the tear lines back in the photo because, as you can see, it's both torn and coming away from the backing card. The photo is actually called a Cabinet Photo, and I was able to find the same address on an eBay auction version as the one used in the Book of Secrets version.

 

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Another grab from the NTBOS DVD as the propmaker is thumbing through the book. We get to see the second page of Taft's Last Day as written by Ike Hoover on the Left Page.

 

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I've come across this letter from Grover Cleveland in the book that sits with the Colored Dakota map that begins with Unemployment is at an all time high. I've tried to transcribe what I could see to the best of my abilities but haven't been able to locate an actual source of this letter/note. It mentions gold and JP Morgan, the economy and the Treasury. Based on what I could find out from Google:
In 1895, during a period of economic crisis and low gold reserves, President Grover Cleveland and J.P. Morgan collaborated to stabilize the U.S. currency. J.P. Morgan, a leading banker, offered to buy government bonds in exchange for gold, effectively providing a loan to the U.S. Treasury. This move was crucial in preventing the government from defaulting on its obligations.

This was a creation written by someone other Ross MacDonald as an entry since there doesn't seem to be any correspondence regarding this. Does anyone happen to have a better picture of this page?

 

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Another page down, Huge thanks to Mr. Ross MacDonald for clarifying the page. This page can be seen on Adam's review with a picture of Charlotte Lewis Brown and a letter. You can barely see the text behind Charlotte's picture, but I've made a positive ID of the text, and it comes from the 2nd page of a 4-page letter from Andrew Jackson to Martin Van Buren regarding nullification from January 13th, 1833. You can see the smudge stain at the top and the reference to good citizens and government in the right corner. Ross also confirmed that his original prop book did not have this picture or this envelope in the original. I guess the original blue Miss Jacqueline Chenault envelope was lost and replaced with the FH Scheunemann version.

 

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After looking through the DVD, I found another page. I noticed Ritchie Kremer settling on a page I hadn't seen before. This page had the insertion of Additional Instructions from James Monroe. The entry itself is a letter from James Monroe to Thomas Jefferson seeking foreign policy advice, dated October 17th, 1823.

 

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I finally got my stamp done and did a couple of test runs. I think it’s going to work out just fine.

 

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Another page down today. This page is seen on the left side of the Book of Secrets (in the DVD BTS) as some kind of ledger/account. With a little help from the man himself, Ross MacDonald (he told me the word "Recapitulation" and that it belonged to Thomas Jefferson), I was able to track down the source page. The page is from Thomas Jefferson, 1784-1789, Accounts as Minister to the Court of Versailles. You can see that the page matches exactly.

 

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These pages and page numbers are truly all over the place. Especially the Calvin Coolidge plank page. If I want to be SA, the plank page needs to appear on the left page; however, several pics of the Coolidge plank page are on the right, across from the Warren G Harding North Conway page. I might just leave the page numbers out of it as well. Well...maybe except for page 47. According to Ross, it was blank.

 

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I'm kind of at a stopping point now unless more pages present themselves. If there is anyone on this forum who has access to pictures of pages for the following Presidents from the actual prop book, PM me and let me know. If there are any pages for Presidents I already have mentioned but didn't post, PM me and let me know. I'm sure I've missed some, as I only have the video, movie, and BTS to go by. I know there are a few on here who have access to the actual books created by Ross. I will post more for both pages and inserts as I come across them.
James Polk
Zachary Taylor
Franklin Pierce
Ulysses S Grant
Herbert Hoover
FDR
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton

 

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Based on this auction from the PropStore, it looks like there are 168 pages in the BOS. You can see that the last page of the book is going into the pocket of the leather cover. I believe the back of the book is where most of the Kennedy photos and documents were stored.