🔍 The Unsolvable Riddle: Dr. Bean's Cryptic Crossword of Love

Curious Tombstones Series, Our journey into the curious and cryptic corners of the graveyard brings us to a quiet corner of Southwestern Ontario, near the charming town of Wellesley. Here, in the unassuming Rushes Cemetery, stands a granite monument that is less a headstone and more a high-stakes, historical word search: The Samuel Bean Cryptic Tombstone.

​The Grieving Doctor and the Grid of Grief

The story begins with Dr. Samuel Bean, a man whose love life was, shall we say, remarkably brief. In the 1860s, Dr. Bean experienced tragedy twice:

​His first wife, Henrietta, passed away just seven months after they were married in 1865.

​His second wife, Susanna, died a mere 20 months later in 1867.

​Heartbroken—and perhaps tired of commissioning standard, run-of-the-mill memorials—Dr. Bean decided to bury both wives side-by-side and erect a single, shared stone. But this wasn't just any headstone; it was his final, most enduring puzzle.

​The monument features a standard inscription at the top, dedicating the stone to his two young wives. Beneath their names, however, is a massive grid containing 225 seemingly random letters and numbers. It looks like a crossword puzzle that lost its clues, or perhaps a secret government code left out in the rain.

The Problem: A Secret Taken to Sea

​Dr. Bean commissioned this monument in secret, installing it without ever revealing the key to his cryptic grid. The good doctor eventually moved away, remarried (a third time!), and then, in 1904, met his own tragic end: he drowned after falling off a sailboat near Cuba.

​And just like that, the solution to Ontario's greatest cemetery mystery was lost at sea.

​For decades, historians, amateur cryptologists, and puzzle-loving tourists would visit Rushes Cemetery, rubbing pencils across the stone, copying the grid, and pulling their hair out trying to crack the code. It was a centuries-long challenge etched in stone, silently mocking every puzzled visitor.

​The Humorous Solution (and a Caveat!) 😂

​Imagine the sheer frustration of these dedicated puzzle masters, only to learn the inscription wasn't some complex cipher involving ancient Greek or the Zodiac!

​The inscription was finally solved in 1947 by cemetery caretaker John L. Hammond (though other sources credit a 94-year-old woman in the 1970s). The solution is a hilarious example of a puzzle that is far more complicated than the secret it hides.

​The Decoding Key:

​The trick to the Bean Tombstone is not lateral thinking or advanced mathematics, but simply finding the starting point and reading the message in a very specific, almost ridiculously complex zigzag, spiral pattern.

The Revelation (The Epitaph in Full):

​Once decoded, the 225 letters and numbers reveal a touching, though somewhat wordy, epitaph:

​"IN MEMORIAM. HENRIETTA 1ST WIFE OF S BEAN M. D. WHO DIED 27TH SEP 1865 AGED 23 YEARS 2 MONTHS & 17 DAYS. & SUSANNA HIS 2ND WIFE WHO DIED 27TH APRIL 1867 AGED 26 YEARS 10 MONTHS & 15 DAYS. 2 BETTER WIVES 1 MAN NEVER HAD, THEY WERE GIFTS FROM GOD BUT ARE NOW IN HEAVEN. MAY GOD HELP ME S.B. TO MEET THEM THERE."

​The punchline? After all the work, the secret message essentially amounts to: "My wives were great, I miss them, and I hope I get into heaven to see them." Dr. Bean took a heartfelt sentiment that could have been inscribed in a single, simple line and turned it into the biggest, most enduring brain-teaser in the township!

​Perhaps Dr. Bean wanted to ensure his wives would always have visitors—people still flock to the site today, either to try their hand at solving it or simply to marvel at his bizarre, affectionate tribute.

​Visiting the Puzzle

​The original white marble stone has since been replaced by a durable grey granite replica to protect the inscription from erosion caused by decades of curious rubbings.

​If you find yourself in Southwestern Ontario, stop by Rushes Cemetery. You might just feel the ghost of Dr. Bean chuckling at your attempts to follow his bewildering path across the stone.

​Join us next time as we explore another fascinating piece of cemetery history!