Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale University, was founded in 1832. Until 1971, the organization published annual membership rosters, which were kept at Yale's library. In this list of notable Bonesmen, the number in parentheses represents the cohort year of Skull and Bones, as well as their graduation year.
There are no official rosters published after 1982 and membership for later years is speculative. Some news organizations refer to them as a power elite.
Founding members (1832–33 academic year)
Frederick Ellsworth Mather (1833), Democratic member of the New York State Assembly (1854–1857) Phineas Timothy Miller (1833), American physician William Huntington Russell (1833), Connecticut State Legislator, Major General Alphonso Taft (1833), U.S. Attorney General (1876–1877), Secretary of War (1876), Ambassador to Austria-Hungary (1882) and Russia (1884–1885), father of William Howard Taft George Ingersoll Wood (1833), American clergyman
19th century
1830s
Asahel Hooker Lewis (1833), newspaper editor and member of the Ohio General Assembly John Wallace Houston (1834), Secretary of State of Delaware (1841–1844), associate judge Delaware Superior Court (1855–1893) John Hubbard Tweedy (1834), delegate to the United States Congress from Wisconsin Territory (1847–1848) William Henry Washington (1834), Whig U.S. Congressman from North Carolina (1841–1843) John Edward Seeley (1835), US Representative from New York Thomas Anthony Thacher (1835), Professor of Latin at Yale University (1842–1886) Henry Champion Deming (1836), U.S. Representative from Connecticut William Maxwell Evarts (1837), U.S. Secretary of State, Attorney General, Senator, grandson of Roger Sherman Chester Smith Lyman (1837), astronomer, Yale professor of Industrial Mechanics and Physics Allen Ferdinand Owen (1837), US Representative from Georgia Benjamin Silliman Jr. (1837), Yale professor of chemistry Morrison Remmick Waite (1837), Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Joseph B. Varnum Jr. (1838), Speaker of the New York State Assembly Richard Dudley Hubbard (1839), Governor of Connecticut, US Representative
1840s
James Mason Hoppin (1840), Professor emeritus at Yale
John Perkins Jr. (1840), U.S. Representative from Louisiana, and then a senator in the Confederate States Congress William Taylor Sullivan Barry (1841), U.S. Representative from Mississippi John Andrew Peters (1842), US Representative from Maine Benjamin Tucker Eames (1843), US Representative from Rhode Island Roswell Hart (1843), US Representative from New York Henry Stevens (1843), bibliographer Orris Sanford Ferry (1844), US Senator from Connecticut, US Representative, US Brigadier General William Barrett Washburn (1844), US Senator, Governor of Massachusetts. Constantine Canaris Esty (1845), US Representative from Massachusetts Richard Taylor (1845), Confederate General, Louisiana State Senator Leonard Eugene Wales (1845), US District Court judge Henry Baldwin Harrison (1846), Governor of Connecticut Stephen Wright Kellogg (1846), US Representative from Connecticut Rensselaer Russell Nelson (1846), US District Court judge John Donnell Smith (1847), botanical researcher, Captain in the Confederate Army Dwight Foster (1848), Massachusetts Attorney General (1861–64), and a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1866–69) Augustus Brandegee (1849), US Representative from Connecticut. Timothy Dwight V (1849), Yale President (1886–1899) Francis Miles Finch (1849), New York Court of Appeals judge, Cornell University professor
