Pointing Between the Stones - Providence Mystery Cache
Pointing Between the Stones - Providence
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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To find this cache, you will explore the North Burial Ground in Providence and maybe learn some history. You can expect to spend at least an hour gathering information which will be used to solve a field puzzle. This is not an easy puzzle, hence the 5.0 difficulty rating! This may require an outside resource and multiple visits. The terrain is hilly in some areas and you may walk up to 3 miles. Because of this, I have raised the terrain rating a bit from the actual 2 rating.
PLEASE READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS PRIOR TO ATTEMPTING THIS CACHE!
North Burial Ground is located between I-95 and US-1 on the north side of Providence, just off of Branch Avenue. You can park just inside the gate, but note the hours of the cemetery as the gates are usually locked after hours. I highly recommend parking near the listed parking coordinates as you can access the cemetery easily from a small gate here and you will not need to worry about the cemetery closing on you. Please note that the suggested parking coordinates will require climbing some stairs. As always, treat the grounds with respect and keep your hunting to daylight hours.
To successfully log this cache, you will need to know how to project a waypoint. The calculated waypoints should be accurate, but in reality you'll just need to get close as the names are all provided for you.
All distances are in feet and all directions are true bearings. If you need to convert the distance to miles, you can divide the answers by 5280.
You will need to print these pages for easier solving and reference, plus since you'll be making notes on the worksheet, you should bring a pen too.
Waypoint Worksheet
Waypoint Cheat Sheet
You will use information from the stones to complete the needed waypoint information, but will also find the additional values "F1" and "F2" which will be used to figure out the last three digits in each set of decimal minutes.
N 41° 51.??? W 071° 24.???
Once you have arrived at the starting listing coordinates, find the stones (there are two of them) with the name Chad Brown. This is where our history lesson begins...
HISTORY AS SEEN THROUGH THE NORTH BURIAL GROUND
CHAPTER 1: COLONIZATION
In 1636, Roger Williams settled in what is now Providence after being banished from Massachussetts Bay Colony. This place, Providence Plantation was a safe haven for all religious minorities. Soon after arriving, he founded the first Baptist church in America. Soon after, in 1638, a man by the name of Chad Brown arrived from England and he settled here in Providence Plantation as well. It was then that he became the minister of this church, a position he held until his death. He played a major role in the development of Providence and his family name is prominent throughout the state to this day.
A – (On the larger stone,) the number of times the letter “N” appears anywhere in his sons’ names
B – The number of sons’ names that do not start with “J”
F1 – The total number of letters and numbers on 2nd (smaller) stone
F2 - The 1st letter of the last word in the 5th line
About 20 years after Chad Brown came to Providence Plantation, a couple by the name of Captain John and Sarah Whipple moved to this area from Dorchester. John arrived from England around 1632, although it turns out that another man by the name of John Whipple arrived just a few years later in about 1638. This other John settled in the Ipswich area of Massachusetts with his brother Matthew. Although it is not clear whether these two Johns are related, they together brought the name to this region. Most all Whipples in Rhode Island are descendants of Captain John and Sarah Whipple.
C – The 2nd digit in Sarah’s age
D - John’s age plus 1, then divided by 3
F1 – The 1st letter of Sarah’s place of death
F2 – The 2nd digit in the day of John’s death
Samuel Whipple was the third child and second son of Captain John and Sarah Whipple. His marks the first burial in the cemetery. The North Burial Ground was the first public burial ground in Providence. Before it was created, people would be interred on their property. There are many of these small lots scattered throughout the state and can still be visited. As Providence grew into a larger city, some of these small cemeteries were relocated into the North Burial Ground. It is believed that Samuel's parents were moved here shortly after his own burial here..
E - The number of times “Ye” is written on the stone
F - The 2nd digit in the day of his death
F1 - The sum of the digits in his day of death
F2 - The 1st letter of the 2nd line of the descriptive marker in the ground in front of the stone
CHAPTER 2: REVOLUTION
On June 10, 1772, a local group of the Sons of Liberty boarded the HMS Gaspee in Narragansett Bay and burned it. Lieutenant William Dudingston was shot and injured in the affair, the first shot fired against the British in the time leading up to the American Revolution. The man who fired that shot was Joseph Bucklin V, who was lost at sea in 1781. There is a marker for him here, right beside his father in the family plot.
G - The number of different years on the plaque (not including the one in the ship logo)
H - The number of letters in the 4th line, minus the total number of lines
F1 - The 2nd and 3rd letters on the plaque
F2 – The 1st letter of the 3rd line
A few years later, the Declaration of Independence was signed. By signing this document, our courageous Founding Fathers placed themselves and their families at great risk. One of these men was Stephen Hopkins, former Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Being one of the older signers at the age of 69, he suffered an ailment which caused his hands to shake, but it is said that as he signed his name he stated, "My hand trembles, my heart does not.".
J - (east side) His month of birth (as a number), plus his day of birth
K - (west side) The number of lines that are above his name
F1 - (south side) The total number of lines of text, multiplied by 2
F2 – The 2nd digit in the day of his death
In 1777, there was a raid in which a small band of Rhode Islanders, led by William Barton, captured a British general at his headquarters in Middletown. For this action, Barton was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and recieved the praise of the Continental Congress. You can check out GC101D7 - "The Barefoot General" if you want to hear the full story.
L - The number of words (including numbers) in the last line
M - The total number of letters in the line above and the line just below his name
F1 - The last letter of the last line
F2 - The (first) letter immediately underneath “24”
CHAPTER 3: FOUNDATION
In this cemetery, you'll find more Browns than any other family name. Of course, most of them originated from the same place as this journey did - Chad Brown. One of his great-grandsons was Captain James Brown II, a sea merchant. Four of his five sons went on to amass a great family wealth and founded the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1764. One of these brothers was Nicholas Brown, whose son was famous in his own right. Nicholas Brown Jr. graduated from the college and continued in the family's commerce business. When his father died in 1791, he took over the company in a partnership with his brother-in-law, forming Brown & Ives. At that time, he also was made a trustee of the college that his father helped to establish. After years of donating to the college, the school was renamed Brown University in 1804. When he died, he also left money that would be used to build Butler Hospital.
N - The number of lines in Latin on the rear of the monument
P - The days of his age, minus the months of his age
F1 - His day of birth
F2 - The 1st letter of 2nd word in recessed epitaph in on the front
Over the years, the population in Providence continued to grow and in 1832, it officially became a city. Samuel Willard Bridgham was elected as the city's first mayor, a post he held until his death. He was a politician and former Rhode Island Attorney General for the state and also served as Chancellor at Brown University. Among other acts as mayor, he worked to make improvements in the public school system.
Q - The number of years he was chancellor of Brown, divided by the number of sessions he spent as Speaker of the General Assembly
R - The number of years he spent as a lawyer, divided by the number of years as mayor
F1 - The number of years he was Attorney General
F2 - The number of times he was elected to the General Assembly
A major contributor to education reform at this time was Horace Mann. Known as the "Father of American education," he was the first secretary of the Massachussetts board of education in 1837. Prior to this position he was a member of the state congress, serving in both the legislature and Senate. In his new position, he worked to transform the public school system into a place where children of all faiths and backgrounds could be taught by well-trained teachers. These students would be allowed an education with a wide curriculum that would be free from sectarian teachings. After leaving political life, he moved to Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he was president of Antioch College until his death.
Charlotte Messer was daughter of Asa Messer, the 3rd president of Brown University. She was married to Horace Mann in 1830, but died of tuberculosis only 2 years later. He did remarry Mary Tyler Peabody, but always was distraught over the loss of Charlotte, especially around the anniversary of her death. Years later, Mary died and had Horace moved here to North Burial Ground so that he could be buried alongside his first wife as well.
S - The number of letters in the first line, plus 1
T – The day that Charlotte died
F1 - The day that Horace died (compare this to Charlotte’s)
F2 - The 1st letter in the name of his son with Mary
CHAPTER 4: CONTRIBUTION
In 1877, a young journalist by the name of Charles Henry Dow started working for the Providence Journal. A few years later, he traveled to Colorado to write about the silver mining industry. While there, he learned about the effects reporting had on Wall Street. He soon left Providence for New York, where he teamed up with Edward Davis Jones to produce a news bureau that would be free of reporting bought with bribes and would not promote manipulation of the market. In 1882, they started Dow, Jones, & Company, which printed a summary of each day's financial news for investors. Demand for the paper grew and in 1889, the Wall Street Journal ran its first issue. Dow went on to create the Dow Industrial Average, an average change in a selection of companies which could be used to track the overall trends of the stock market.
U – The sum of all the digits in Lucy’s year of birth
V – The sum of the digits in Charles’ year of birth, plus his day of birth
F1 - The number of letters in the 2nd word of the epitaph
F2 - The first 2 letters in the 6th word of the epitaph
Edward Mitchell Bannister came from Nova Scotia, Canada and had spent time at sea at a young age. He moved to Boston where he studied art and eventually moved to Providence. In 1876, his work Under the Oaks won first prize at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, making him the first African-American to gain national recognition in the field of painting. He also helped to found the Providence Art Club and was involved with the Rhode Island School of Design. The Art Gallery at RISD was named after him.
W - The number of letters in the 1st word of the 2nd line
X - The number of letters in the 2nd word of the 2nd line
F1 - The sum of the digits in his year of birth
F2 - The 1st letter in 1st word of last line
Annie Smith Peck was a scholar from Providence who studied Greek and classical languages and went on to become a professor at Purdue University. In the 1880s, she turned her interest towards mountain climbing. In 1895, she gained fame for being the third woman to climb the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. She then went on to climb Peru's Mount Huascaran, at that time believed to be the highest peak in the Americas. Furthermore, she was the very first person to climb this mountain and she did it at the age of 58! In her later years, she continued climbing throughout the world, especially South America.
Y - The number of letters in the last line
Z – The 2nd digit of the birthday age mentioned
F1 - The 1st letter in Dr. Finley's first name
F2 - The 1st digit of the birthday age
FINAL INSTRUCTIONS
You should now have a completed worksheet, unless you didn't print one out. Then you have a mess of scribbled notes on whatever you have to write on. At this time (if you haven't already) proceed to the calculated waypoint. Here you will have to start using some geosense. You will need to find a container that holds the key to decipher the information you have collected. This key will provide all further information required in order to find the final cache. You should be able to do all of the work on the printed worksheet. Copy any required information from this stage and replace the key in the container once you are done using it! Be sure to return the container for this stage to its proper location.
At this point, you have a puzzle to solve. This may be hard for some and easy for others. Due to certain resources which may not be readily available, you may need to leave the cemetery to gather more information. If you have the means to solve this puzzle with you, feel free to spend a little time relaxing in this peaceful spot while working on it.
Please re-hide the final cache container well in order to keep it from being seen.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
pbbeq.vasb/TP2MTIU