Mystery Beneath the Baneberry Bush

A story of the famed Thomas Jefferson Beale ciphers that has been aired on national TV by the news media, various programs, and can be reviewed on the Internet is given renewed attention. Three sets of numbers are in the code, and until recent years, only paper number 2 had been deciphered. However, a new story emerges in the deciphered papers 1 and 3. It is the journal of Gilbert Bean, a young Scottish minister living in Bedford County, Pennsylvania.

Mystery Beneath the Baneberry Bush is the story of this frontier and enterprising Bean family based on the journal. During the American Revolution, Gilbert Bean served in the Rawlings Regiment under Capt. Thomas Beal, founder of Cumberland, Maryland. Gilbert, Beau he was often called, made an effort to destroy all his personal public records, but his records from the National Archives state that he deserted. Did he desert the very cause that he was fighting for? Why was it necessary to code his journal? What is the strange "ark" Bet Bean stole from a British boat? Is there a treasure trove in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, more precious than silver and gold that will shock America?