As reported by the Berkshire Eagle, fifteen-year-old Shelby M.
Sebring tackled the mystery of the Rev. Adonijah Bidwell’s
surviving papers while working as a paid intern at the Bidwell
House Museum. The first impressive thing is Sebring’s
accomplishment. The second is that a small history museum could
offer a paid internship. The Rev. Mr. Bidwell (1716-1784) left
only a few “sermons in a private code: a mixture of early forms
of English, Greek, Latin, symbols and shorthand.” (Descendant
Edwin M. Biddle described seeing a diary with accounts of his
service as a chaplain and fill-in minister in the 1740s, before
he settled in what became Monterey.) Bidwell’s Wikipedia entry,
last updated in March, says, “his shorthand code is too complex
to gain more than the basic feel of a sermon.” Using Fred B.
Wrixton’s Codes, Ciphers and Other Cryptic and Clandestine
Communication: 400 Ways to Send Secret Messages from Hieroglyphs
to the Internet, which she had received as a Christmas gift,
Sebring set out to fill in the g