COLONEL’S BEDROOM
Watch your step as your take two steps down into the Colonel’s bedroom. Wright often designed his rooms to accommodate his clients and, since Colonel Fabyan was over 6-feet tall, Wright made this room taller.
Colonel Fabyan believed that, as a man of means, he had a responsibility to give back to society. He chose to do this as a benefactor of scientific research. He built Riverbank Laboratories, located directly west across Route 31 from the museum, still a working laboratory but now privately owned. During the Fabyan era, dozens of scientific research projects were conducted, most notably in the fields of codebreaking and acoustics.
CODEBREAKING
See display case to the right of the fireplace.
In 1912, Colonel Fabyan started funding the research of Elizabeth Wells Gallup, an author who strongly advocated the Baconian Theory which claimed that the plays of Shakespeare were written by Sir Francis Bacon. The Theory was that Bacon hid a bi-literal cipher in the text which, when broken, would reveal that Bacon was the real Shakespeare. Fabyan hired a staff of mostly women for Gallup to work on the Bacon-Shakespeare project and had original Shakespeare plays and sonnets delivered to Riverbank.* One of the women hired was English literature graduate, Elizebeth Smith.
In order to “find” the cipher, Shakespeare’s works needed to be photographed and enlarged. William Friedman, hired by Fabyan to do plant genetics research, also happened to be an amateur photographer and was asked to do the job. Friedman soon became much more interested in codebreaking and Elizebeth Smith than plants. The two married in 1917.
When the U.S. became involved in WWI, the Colonel focused Gallup’s staff on the work of codebreaking for various departments of the US government. The cryptology staff, led by Elizebeth and William Friedman, trained US army soldiers in a six week course in the basics of cryptology, paid for by the Fabyans. A picture of these soldiers is in the display case along with various codebreaking tools. Some of the soldiers appear to not be looking at the camera. This was by design. The picture is an example of a bi-lateral cipher which, when broken, reveals the Baconian quote, “Knowledge is power.”
Elizebeth and William Friedman went on to work for the U.S. military for three decades and were both instrumental in codebreaking work during World War II.
*NOTE: In 1957 Elizebeth and William Friedman published The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined in which they concluded Bacon DID NOT write Shakespeare.
ACOUSTICS
See display case across the room from the codebreaking case.
The Colonel also financed research in the then-new field of acoustic science. He collaborated with Wallace Sabine, an acoustics professor from Harvard University, to design the acoustic lab building that was completed in 1918 and is still in use across Route 31. The research there led to early experiments into hearing aids, soundproofing materials, and much more. This display case has a range of items from acoustic testing equipment to tuning forks.
Like his wife, Colonel Fabyan had his own private bathroom located behind the closed door and not available for public view. The bathroom was redone sometime in the early 1930’s, and the sink and bathtub are original to that time period, reflecting a minimalistic Art Deco style.
