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. Some news organizations refer to the organization's members as a power elite.
The 2004 United States presidential election was the only time two members of Skull and Bones, George W. Bush and John F. Kerry, ran against each other for the presidency.
There are no official rosters published after 1982 and membership for later years is often speculative.
Founding members (1832–33 academic year)
Frederick Ellsworth Mather (1833), New York State Assembly (1854–1857) "This list is compiled from material from the Order of Skull and Bones membership books at Sterling Library, Yale University and other public records. The latest books available are the 1971 Living members and the 1973 Deceased Members books. The last year the members were published in the Yale Banner is 1969." Phineas Timothy Miller (1833), 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), 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 ShermanChester Leonard Barrows, William M. Evarts, Lawyer, Diplomat, Statesman, University of North Carolina press, 1941, page 12 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"Henry Stevens." Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 13 Apr. 2011. 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
1850s
Ellis Henry Roberts (1850), US Representative from New York Richard Jacobs Haldeman (1851), Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from Pennsylvania William Wallace Crapo (1852), US Representative from Massachusetts Daniel Coit Gilman (1852), president of the University of California, Johns Hopkins University, and the Carnegie Institution, founder of the Russell Trust Association George Griswold Sill (1852), Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut Andrew Dickson White (1853), cofounder and first President of Cornell University "Dr. A.D. White Dies; A Cornell Founder; President of University for 18 Years Dies in Ithaca Close to His 86th Birthday. Twice Envoy to Germany; Educator Who Sought to Broaden Scope of Colleges Had Also Served as Minister to Russia. Fought for Reform in Colleges. Spent Many Years in Education. His Gifts to Cornell," New York Times. November 5, 1918. Carroll Cutler (1854), President of Western Reserve College, now known as Case Western Reserve University. Luzon Buritt Morris (1854), Governor of Connecticut William DeWitt Alexander (1855), educator, linguist, and surveyor of Hawaii Chauncey Depew (1856), Vanderbilt railroad attorney, US Senator Eli Whitney Blake Jr. (1857), American scientist and educator, great-nephew of Eli Whitney John Thomas Croxton (1857), Civil War Brigadier General, United States Ambassador to Bolivia Moses Coit Tyler (1857), professor of history at Cornell University Burton Norvell Harrison (1859), private secretary to Jefferson Davis Eugene Schuyler (1859), US Ambassador, author and translator
1860s Lowndes Henry Davis (1860), US Representative from Missouri William Walter Phelps (1860), US Representative from New Jersey Simeon E. Baldwin (1861), Governor and Chief Justice of the State of Connecticut, son of Roger Sherman Baldwin Anthony Higgins (1861), US Senator Edward Rowland Sill (1861), poet, professor at the University of California Daniel Henry Chamberlain (1862), Governor of South Carolina Franklin MacVeagh (1862), US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Farnum Dimock (1863), Whitney family attorney, Director of the Yale Corporation William Collins Whitney (1863), US Secretary of the NavyThe University Magazine, vol. 5 no. 5, November 1891 Charles Fraser MacLean (1864), New York Supreme Court judge John William Sterling (1864), lawyer, co-founder Shearman & Sterling John Manning Hall (1866), lawyer, politician, and railroad executive George Chandler Holt (1866), US District Court Judge Henry Morton Dexter (1867), clergyman, editor, author Albert Elijah Dunning (1867), American theologian and author Thomas Hedge (1867), US Representative from Iowa George Peabody Wetmore (1867), US Senator and Governor of Rhode Island Chauncey Bunce Brewster (1868), Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut LeBaron Bradford Colt (1868), US Senator and Circuit Court Judge Wilson Shannon Bissell (1869), Postmaster GeneralPublications of the Buffalo Historical Society, vol. 7, 1904
1870s
William H. Welch (1870), Dean of Johns Hopkins University Frederick Collin (1871), judge, mayor of Elmira, New York Edwin Forrest Sweet (1871), US Representative from Michigan Thomas Thacher (1871), lawyer William Kneeland Townsend (1871), US Appeals Court judge George Foot Moore (1872), author, Professor of theology at Harvard University Theodore Salisbury Woolsey (1872), co-founder of the Yale Review, professor of international law Eben Alexander (1873), American scholar, educator, dean and ambassador Samuel Oscar Prentice (1873), Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut Frank Bigelow Tarbell (1873), classicist, professor of Greek and history at Yale, Harvard, and the University of Chicago Edward Rudolph Johnes (1873), Attorney and Author Almet Francis Jenks (1875), Justice of the New York Supreme Court John Patton Jr. (1875), US Senator Edward Curtis Smith (1875), Governor of Vermont Walker Blaine (1876), United States Department of State official Charles Newell Fowler (1876), US Representative from New Jersey Arthur Twining Hadley (1876), Yale President 1899–1921 Roger Sherman Baldwin Foster (1878), lawyer and author Tudor Storrs Jenks (1878), author"Tudor Jenks Dies Suddenly," New York Times, February 12, 1922. William Howard Taft (1878), 27th President of the United States, Chief Justice of the United States, Secretary of War Edward Baldwin Whitney (1878), New York Supreme Court justice Lloyd Wheaton Bowers (1879), Solicitor General of the United States Oliver David Thompson (1879), lawyer, American football player and manager Ambrose Tighe (1879), member Minnesota House of Representatives Timothy Lester Woodruff (1879), Lieutenant Governor of New York
1880s
Walter Camp (1880), father of American football and exercise proponent Sidney Catlin Partridge (1880) Bishop of Kyoto, Japan, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri Henry Waters Taft (1880), lawyer, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft Edwin Edgerton Aiken (1881), missionary Thomas Burr Osborne (1881), chemist, co-discoverer of Vitamin A Benjamin Brewster (1882), Bishop of Maine and Missionary Bishop of Western Colorado William Phelps Eno (1882), traffic planner called the "Father of Traffic Safety" James Campbell (1882), son of businessman Robert Campbell, Harvard Law 1888.Campbell House Museum Elihu Brintnal Frost (1883), lawyer, president of several early submarine companies Eliakim Hastings Moore (1883), mathematician, namesake of the Moore–Penrose pseudoinverse Joseph Robinson Parrott (1883), president of the Florida East Coast Railway Horace Dutton Taft (1883), educator, founder of the Taft School Wilbur Franklin Booth (1884), US federal judge Maxwell Evarts (1884), member of the Vermont House of Representatives, attorney for E. H. Harriman Frank Bosworth Brandegee (1885), US Representative and Senator Alfred Cowles Jr. (1886), lawyer, director Chicago Tribune Edward Johnson Phelps (1886), president of Northern Trust Safe Deposit Company John Christopher Schwab (1886), Yale professor and librarian Clinton Larue Hare (1887), lawyer, college football coach George Griswold Haven Jr. (1887), businessman Oliver Gould Jennings (1887), financier, member of Connecticut House of Representatives William Kent (1887), United States Congressman for California Irving Fisher (1888), economist and eugenicist Richard Melancthon Hurd (1888), real estate executive Amos Alonzo Stagg (1888), college football Hall of Fame coach Charles Otis Gill (1888), clergyman, author, college football coach Henry L. Stimson (1888), Governor-General of the Philippines, US Secretary of War, US Secretary of State Gifford Pinchot (1889), First Chief of U.S. Forest ServiceTime Magazine. 1940. Education: Skull & Bones. George Washington Woodruff (1889), College Hall of Fame football coach, Acting Secretary of the Interior and Pennsylvania Attorney General
1890s Thomas F. Bayard Jr. (1890), US Senator Fairfax Harrison (1890), president Southern Railway Company Percy Hamilton Stewart (1890), US Representative from New Jersey Frederic Collin Walcott (1891), US Senator Hugh Aiken Bayne (1892), lawyer Strong & Cadwalader, Adjutant General's Office and War Department during World War I Howell Cheney (1892), manufacturer, founded Howell Cheney Technical High School Benjamin Lewis Crosby Jr. (1892), law student and football coach Clive Day (1892), Professor of economic history at Yale Henry S. Graves (1892), co-founder and first Dean of Yale School of Forestry, 2nd chief of the U.S. Forest Service, founding member and 4th president of the Society of American Foresters