Skull and Bones Society

Skull and Bones

The logo of Skull and Bones
Formation	1832
Type	Secret society
Headquarters	Yale University
Location	New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Region served	United States
Official language	English
Parent organization	Russell Trust Association

Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is the oldest senior class landed society. The society's alumni organization, the Russell Trust Association, owns the society's real estate and oversees the organization. The society is known informally as "Bones", and members are known as "Bonesmen".

Skull and Bones was founded in 1832 after a dispute among Yale debating societies Linonia, Brothers in Unity, and the Calliopean Society over that season's Phi Beta Kappa awards. William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft co-founded "the Order of the Scull [sic] and Bones".

The society's assets are managed by the society's alumni organization, the Russell Trust Association, incorporated in 1856 and named after the Bones co-founder. The association was founded by Russell and Daniel Coit Gilman, a Skull and Bones member.

The first extended description of Skull and Bones, published in 1871 by Lyman Bagg in his book Four Years at Yale, noted that "the mystery now attending its existence forms the one great enigma which college gossip never tires of discussing." Brooks Mather Kelley attributed the interest in Yale senior societies to the fact that underclassmen members of then freshman, sophomore, and junior class societies returned to campus the following years and could share information about society rituals, while graduating seniors were, with their knowledge of such, at least a step removed from campus life.