In this new investigation series, the Compendium will be looking closely at various documents which have been associated with Oak Island, whether directly or indirectly. Allegedly, these all belonged at some time to Dr William “Bill” Jackson. This vast collection of documents included the “Jackson Oak Island Map” and the “La Formule” and “Cremona” documents, all of which have been mentioned on The Curse of Oak Island TV show. We mostly learn about Bill Jackson and his documents in two books: The Templar Mission by Zena Halpern and The Scrolls of Onteora by Don Ruh.
There is little known about William Jackson, what we have found we will present to you here. To fully understand his documents, we have analysed the texts, the words that were used and the possible date that they were written. We concentrated on the French documents that he owned as the most famous were written in - or encoded from - French.
You might be asking why we would have the knowledge and necessary experience to examine some of the French documents? Charlotte of the Compendium works as a French-English interpreter, translator, and teacher, she’s lived in France for 34 years and speaks French fluently. Charlotte and Daniel of the Compendium have been working on these documents for some time (it was one of our first subjects of research together in 2021). Erin King has also been involved in this investigation and has helped us source valuable information.
Being important to have other opinions, we have consulted with several French language experts who have also looked at these documents, including Mr Patrick Huré, a French author and novelist who has been published by the Education Nationale, and a French, Latin and Greek teacher who has experience with old French and the evolution of the French language. She has asked to remain anonymous as she works in a public school, which we fully understand.
Who was Bill Jackson?
Bill Jackson is a very mysterious character, before his alleged death in 2000, he collected many documents and manuscripts. Don Ruh’s account of Jackson’s life is the most complete we’ve seen so far. In Mr Ruh’s book The Scrolls of Onteora we learn that Jackson was born in 1938 and that they both knew each other as children. William Jackson became a doctor and worked for the US army in various secure locations. We also learn that Dr Jackson and Don Ruh were connected to a certain Dan Spartan who they both worked for periodically. Mr Spartan led a sort of mysterious company known as Spartan Enterprises. We don’t know much about the precise activities that Spartan specialised in, but from Don Ruh’s account it seems they installed surveillance materials, were once asked to test cold-weather clothing, and had an in-house photographer… Dan Spartan provided contacts to Dr Jackson and helped secure meetings. His story is as enigmatic as William Jackson’s.
Another intriguing part of Bill Jackson’s life, which we learn in Mr Ruh’s account, is that he was supposedly in some kind of witness protection. We have searched for his birth and death certificates, and any records about his life. We’ve looked both in America and in Ireland, which he seems to be connected to. We’ve looked for family members, schools, addresses, anything that could help us identify him. Bill Jackson seems to be a ghost… Or at the least, his life is very much like a cloak and dagger mystery.
Usually with our research we find the people we are looking for, or some sort of record of their existence. While Don Ruh provides some important information about Doctor Jackson; his children’s names, the fact they moved to Ireland, his wife’s name, what she did for a profession… We still can’t find anyone to contact to find out more about the man and his collection of documents. Both Zena Halpern and Don Ruh suggest that Dr Jackson changed his name, even possibly twice, which would indeed make it much harder to locate him. If fictitious, Jackson’s lack of verifiable information would be very convenient. Our only serious lead was finding a record for a Bill Jackson in a yearbook from a school in Mount Vernon, that Don Ruh says he attended.
The story of how Dr Jackson came into possession of these documents starts with a fishing trip where both he and Don Ruh went to Bannerman Island. There they found a couple of plaster boxes with orange-coloured balls on top which looked like gate-post decorations. Bill took these home to be used as ornaments for his garden wall. After an incident where his son broke one of the boxes, he opened the second box and found a mysterious document and a “seal” with various symbols engraved on it.
With this discovery, Bill Jackson got involved in research that brought him to own many documents, we are only examining a few in this investigation. According to Don Ruh, he was a close friend of Dr Jackson’s, he inherited his papers, his manuscripts, and his books after Bill Jackson’s alleged death in March 2000. Zena Halpern was introduced to Don Ruh in 2004 and this is how she also got involved with Dr Jackson’s research. Mrs Halpern and Mr Ruh were intending to write a book together but later had a disagreement. Zena Halpern appeared on The Curse of Oak Island TV show, where she shared the now famous map of the island and the “La Formule” page. Both Don Ruh and Zena Halpern decided to write separate books about the contents of the “Cremona Document”.
The Cremona Document Part 1:
The Curse of Oak Island - The History Channel
The composition of the “Cremona Document” is confusing to understand, it has
been given different names (Benvenuto Document, The Onteora Document) and seems to contain various manuscripts with texts and maps. It was supposedly written by different authors and there are different parts, including a journal written by a certain Ralph de Sudley in the 12th century. There are various subjects in the document but the most extra-ordinary involves a trans-Atlantic trip undertaken by a group of Knights of the Order of the Temple. It has been suggested that the document is a copy of the original, which explains part of the more modern looking handwriting. It was partly written in the Theban alphabet, and uses various languages, including English, Italian and French.
The Cremona has never been published in its entirety, we have only seen extracts from the internet, and in Zena Halpern’s and Don Ruh’s books, so unfortunately, we can’t analyse the full document properly. In part 1 of this investigation, we will examine the "Nova-Scotia Map" and a page that Don Ruh calls the "Ark Page"
The Map of Nova Scotia
The so called "Nova-Scotia Map" as seen above, was shown on the Curse of Oak Island TV show and features in both Zena Halpern's and Don Ruh's books. It is suggested that this document dates from the 12th Century. Though the map is not to scale, we can easily identify different parts of Canada including Nova-Scotia. The annotations on the map are in French and there are numbers written in Roman Numerals and in text form.
There are certain words/sentences that seemed slightly peculiar to us, but two annotations in particular caught our attention:
● The sentence "LA COURANT DE MONSTRE" ["The monster current"] is badly written and should have the masculine article "LE" as "COURANT" is a masculine noun. We know from various sources that parts of the Cremona could have been written by an English speaker but masculine/feminine is a common mistake throughout the Bill Jackson documents, some of which were supposedly written by native French speakers.
● We think the word "INUHIT" has a mistake and should be written "INUIT" like in English. There are no other similar words it could represent. "INUIT" is a very modern word, it is attested as being introduced to the French language in the 20th century (1). In the huge database of archives on the BNF website (French National Library) the first publication we've found with the word "INUIT" was published in 1963 (2) although it could have been used earlier. It's first known use in the English language was much earlier, in about 1745.
The Ark Document
In Don Ruh’s book, there is a photo of a page from Bill Jackson’s collection that has the drawing of a chest on it, this is supposedly a representation of the Ark of the Covenant. The rest of the document appears to be a sort of map, there are also lines which look like the shape of a river and various annotations in the Theban alphabet.
The Theban alphabet (also known as the Witches’ Alphabet and the Runes of Honorius) was supposedly created by Honorius of Thebes in the middle ages, this is first claimed in Polygraphia by Johannes Trithemius, polygraph, abbot and cryptographer, in 1518. But earlier writings in Theban have yet to be found and authenticated. Used as a replacement cipher for concealing secret messages, spells, and knowledge, it is often associated with witchcraft and the Wiccan and Pagan movements; it was used to write rituals and magic. In the Ark document, Theban was used to replace French words.
It has been suggested that the Order of the Temple used Theban symbols as a substitution alphabet but after extensive research we have found nothing to conclude this is the case. At the time of the Templars, substitution alphabets were indeed used, there are a few known examples of the Cistercian Numerals, which the religious group created as an alternative to Arabic Numerals. The Cistercians were closely affiliated to the Temple Order, and it would not be surprising if the Templars used a similar system, but there is no actual evidence to support that the Knights Templar used such a cipher.
Some researchers have suggested that the Cremona is a medieval document, even possibly a Templar document, which was partly recopied much later, this is purportedly the case with the “Ark Document”. To comprehend more about this document, its writer, and its possible age we have examined it in detail.
In Don Ruh’s book the words have already been transcribed into French and then translated into English, we have rechecked the writing in Theban that was done at the time and have looked at the sentences and words.
