A meteor streaking across the firmament Fortean:
He was never to return, though he was a sign of Fortean interests.
Thomas Pennell Leary was born 5 May 1921 in Nebraska to Edward Leary and the former Leah Pennell. He had an older sister, Jane. Edward was a successful lawyer in private practice. In 1930, he owned a home worth $12,000 (about $173,000 in today’s terms) and the family employed an Irish-immigrant domestic. The Learys weathered the Depression, their home worth $7,500 in 1940 ($128,000 equivalent in 2016), and no longer employing a domestic—but that may be because Jane was then 23 and Thomas 18. He was going by the name Pennell, though.
Leary graduated from Central High School in Omaha in the late 1930s, and went to college. He joined the army on 30 June 1942 and re-enlisted on 4 March 1943, serving to 12 November 1945. (Edward never served in the military, though he was also too old for the Great War.) According to later reports by his family, he was a bomber and fighter test pilot, and was later associated with Project Javaman. Javaman was an OSS project to develop explosive boats that could be remotely controlled by B-17 bombers. I have no corroboration of these claims, nor any reason to disbelieve them. He graduated from the University of Nebraska with a B.A. in August 1946.
He was never to return, though he was a sign of Fortean interests.
Thomas Pennell Leary was born 5 May 1921 in Nebraska to Edward Leary and the former Leah Pennell. He had an older sister, Jane. Edward was a successful lawyer in private practice. In 1930, he owned a home worth $12,000 (about $173,000 in today’s terms) and the family employed an Irish-immigrant domestic. The Learys weathered the Depression, their home worth $7,500 in 1940 ($128,000 equivalent in 2016), and no longer employing a domestic—but that may be because Jane was then 23 and Thomas 18. He was going by the name Pennell, though.
Leary graduated from Central High School in Omaha in the late 1930s, and went to college. He joined the army on 30 June 1942 and re-enlisted on 4 March 1943, serving to 12 November 1945. (Edward never served in the military, though he was also too old for the Great War.) According to later reports by his family, he was a bomber and fighter test pilot, and was later associated with Project Javaman. Javaman was an OSS project to develop explosive boats that could be remotely controlled by B-17 bombers. I have no corroboration of these claims, nor any reason to disbelieve them. He graduated from the University of Nebraska with a B.A. in August 1946.
In 1947, Leary graduated from the Law School at Creighton and was admitted to the bar by September. His family says that he was a trial attorney from this year until the late 1990s. His hobbies included photography, electronics, and aeronautics. He also had an interest in Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, and cryptography, which were relevant to his Fortean-related activities. I do not know exactly when these enthusiasms first displayed themselves, but apparently Leary was working on them even as he started a family and ran his law practice.
The first evidence of his interest in Bacon and Shakespeare that I can find came in 1953. On 1 October 1953, Leary copyrighted a 36 page booklet titled “The Oak Island Enigma; A History and Inquiry into the Origin of the Money Pit.” The title referred to an island off the coast of Nova Scotia. Since the middle of the 19th century there had been an interest in diggings on the island that were sometimes associated with the brief treasure of Captain Kidd—hence, The Money Pit. The excavation revealed layers of logs. Over time, there were additional excavations and periodic coverage by the press and authors. The future Fortean Harold T. Wilkins wrote about the mystery in his 1937 book “Captain kidd and his Skeleton Island.” By the 1940s, then, Oak Island was firmly established in the canon of unsolved mysteries.
I have not seen Leary’s booklet, but by accounts, Leary contended that the pit hid held manuscripts proving Francis Bacon was the author of Shakespeare’s works and the head of the Rosicrucians. Authorship of Shakespeare’s works had long been a magnet for fringe theories, and Bacon was a favored choice as the real author. These theories also date back to the 19th century. Among others, the Theosophist-favorite and Atlantis-popularizer Ignatius Donnely published a book on the topic. He argued that Bacon encoded his authorship in the works themselves with a cipher. Shakespeare, thus, needed to be read esoterically, just as Theosophists and Gnostics would claim the Bible needed to be read.
Leary’s interest in the subject persisted, and he would later write on cryptology of the Baconian period, and put out a more fully fleshed cryptological case for Bacon’s authorship in 1987, “Cryptographic Shakespeare.” Three years later, an enlarged edition came out, “The Second Cryptographic Shakespeare.” Of course, he was also a family man, a lawyer, and many other things—I have several abbreviated this biography to focus on his Fortean work, especially in the years prior to 1960, and do not mean this in any way to summarize him as a man.
Thomas Pennell Leary died 9 March 2005. He was 83.
***************************
The Fortean resonances in Leary’s hobby are obvious. There was Wilkins--whom, admittedly, he doesn’t seem to have cited—and Donnelly, not a Fortean but a Fortean icon—whom he did. And Thayer had included bits and pieces on the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy over the years: in Doubt 11 (winter 1944-1945); Doubt 13 (winter 1945); as well as the Bacon connection to the Voynich Manuscript (in Doubt 25, May 1949–this was Fortean Charles Jacobs’s contribution). Bacon was honored as a posthumous Fortean—Doubt 13 and Doubt 26 (October 1949, this latter by Fortean I O Evans)—as well as an object of Theosophical contemplation (Doubt 39, January 1953), in this case by Art Joquel.
So, Leary nestled easily in Thayer’s version of Forteanism, which took up so many heresies.
His one and only mention came in Doubt 44 (April 1954) and was an announcement for his booklet. “New Bacnoniana” was the title:
“A brand new and very curious addition to the Shakespeare-Bacon-or-Whom? controversy comes out of the sea near Nova Scotia. That’s where Oak Island is, and Oak Island has been the scene of buried treasure hunts since 1795. Captain Kidd may have drawn the map, and Bacon’s ‘lost’ manuscripts may have been buried there.
“MFS Thomas P. Leary of Nebraska set the type of this book, and printed and bound the book by hand. Many illustrations, photos and diagrams.
“The Oak Island Enigma, by Thomas P. Leary. Cloth-bound. Limited edition of 100 copies. From the Society, $3.00.”
(As a postscript, Thayer noted that one Calvin Hoffman went to Denmark last November in search of evidence for his contention that Shakespeare’s plays were written by Christopher Marlowe.” That clipping was contributed by an otherwise-unknown Fortean, Mitchell.)
Given all of this, it is unclear how or when Leary came to the Fortean Society, and if he knew anything about Charles Fort at all. He was a member as of this issue, but may have only become so as a way to spread the word about his ideas, and sell his book. It may also be, of course, that he’d been a member for a long time.
At any rate, he was never mentioned in the pages of Doubt again, or in correspondence of Fortean that I have seen. The small edition of his book probably accounts for the limited spread of his ideas at this time. But I have seen no evidence, either, that Leary ever mentioned Fort or the Fortean Society again. I can not find mention of either in his later books.
He was a streak across Forteanism in the early 1950s, then gone.
The first evidence of his interest in Bacon and Shakespeare that I can find came in 1953. On 1 October 1953, Leary copyrighted a 36 page booklet titled “The Oak Island Enigma; A History and Inquiry into the Origin of the Money Pit.” The title referred to an island off the coast of Nova Scotia. Since the middle of the 19th century there had been an interest in diggings on the island that were sometimes associated with the brief treasure of Captain Kidd—hence, The Money Pit. The excavation revealed layers of logs. Over time, there were additional excavations and periodic coverage by the press and authors. The future Fortean Harold T. Wilkins wrote about the mystery in his 1937 book “Captain kidd and his Skeleton Island.” By the 1940s, then, Oak Island was firmly established in the canon of unsolved mysteries.
I have not seen Leary’s booklet, but by accounts, Leary contended that the pit hid held manuscripts proving Francis Bacon was the author of Shakespeare’s works and the head of the Rosicrucians. Authorship of Shakespeare’s works had long been a magnet for fringe theories, and Bacon was a favored choice as the real author. These theories also date back to the 19th century. Among others, the Theosophist-favorite and Atlantis-popularizer Ignatius Donnely published a book on the topic. He argued that Bacon encoded his authorship in the works themselves with a cipher. Shakespeare, thus, needed to be read esoterically, just as Theosophists and Gnostics would claim the Bible needed to be read.
Leary’s interest in the subject persisted, and he would later write on cryptology of the Baconian period, and put out a more fully fleshed cryptological case for Bacon’s authorship in 1987, “Cryptographic Shakespeare.” Three years later, an enlarged edition came out, “The Second Cryptographic Shakespeare.” Of course, he was also a family man, a lawyer, and many other things—I have several abbreviated this biography to focus on his Fortean work, especially in the years prior to 1960, and do not mean this in any way to summarize him as a man.
Thomas Pennell Leary died 9 March 2005. He was 83.
***************************
The Fortean resonances in Leary’s hobby are obvious. There was Wilkins--whom, admittedly, he doesn’t seem to have cited—and Donnelly, not a Fortean but a Fortean icon—whom he did. And Thayer had included bits and pieces on the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy over the years: in Doubt 11 (winter 1944-1945); Doubt 13 (winter 1945); as well as the Bacon connection to the Voynich Manuscript (in Doubt 25, May 1949–this was Fortean Charles Jacobs’s contribution). Bacon was honored as a posthumous Fortean—Doubt 13 and Doubt 26 (October 1949, this latter by Fortean I O Evans)—as well as an object of Theosophical contemplation (Doubt 39, January 1953), in this case by Art Joquel.
So, Leary nestled easily in Thayer’s version of Forteanism, which took up so many heresies.
His one and only mention came in Doubt 44 (April 1954) and was an announcement for his booklet. “New Bacnoniana” was the title:
“A brand new and very curious addition to the Shakespeare-Bacon-or-Whom? controversy comes out of the sea near Nova Scotia. That’s where Oak Island is, and Oak Island has been the scene of buried treasure hunts since 1795. Captain Kidd may have drawn the map, and Bacon’s ‘lost’ manuscripts may have been buried there.
“MFS Thomas P. Leary of Nebraska set the type of this book, and printed and bound the book by hand. Many illustrations, photos and diagrams.
“The Oak Island Enigma, by Thomas P. Leary. Cloth-bound. Limited edition of 100 copies. From the Society, $3.00.”
(As a postscript, Thayer noted that one Calvin Hoffman went to Denmark last November in search of evidence for his contention that Shakespeare’s plays were written by Christopher Marlowe.” That clipping was contributed by an otherwise-unknown Fortean, Mitchell.)
Given all of this, it is unclear how or when Leary came to the Fortean Society, and if he knew anything about Charles Fort at all. He was a member as of this issue, but may have only become so as a way to spread the word about his ideas, and sell his book. It may also be, of course, that he’d been a member for a long time.
At any rate, he was never mentioned in the pages of Doubt again, or in correspondence of Fortean that I have seen. The small edition of his book probably accounts for the limited spread of his ideas at this time. But I have seen no evidence, either, that Leary ever mentioned Fort or the Fortean Society again. I can not find mention of either in his later books.
He was a streak across Forteanism in the early 1950s, then gone.
