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POTUS Series #8: The Secrets of Old Kinderhook Traditional Cache

Hidden : 7/19/2021
Difficulty:
2.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1 out of 5

Size: Size:   micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:


This cache requires use of a tool, but I can think of three kinds of tools that would work. Stealth definitely required.

Northeast Minneapolis (and towns due north of us) feature Avenues named after our country's presidents. Some of them anyway. I've decided to make a series based on their lives, but I absolutely refuse to look anything up. So... I advise you not to use this for your term paper.

Several interesting facts about President Martin van Buren

Martin Van Buren was popularly known as “Old Kinderhook” after his ancestral home Kinderhook on the Hudson River. Where that name came from is more obscure. It clearly comes from the Dutch for “child” and “hook.” But what did it actually mean? One theory is that is derived from the traditional Dutch practice of punishing naughty little boys by hanging them on hooks from their suspenders. Another is that it involved fishing tackle for children, and yet another suggests that a golfer’s hook is a childish mistake. Whatever the case, Van Buren was stuck with the nom de whatever, and rode it to the White House.

A sinister rumor about his name, not much discussed, involves the secret Society of the Hook, which moved unseen across the land, but whose terrifying methods of terrorist persuasion terrorized whole neighborhoods into terror. Terrible. They erected signal posts like these, in pairs, across the country, though their purpose remains obscure. The distinctive Hooks of the nineteenth century have been replaced by more modern technology, and again the meaning is obscure. One thing is certain: the Red Hook (named after the dangerous dockside district in Brooklyn, NY, not the beer from Seattle) is of particular significance. You would do well to remember this. 

President Van Buren probably did important things and made the news at the time of his presidency, but like Chester Alan Arthur and Millard Fillmore, his name has drifted into obscurity. But the Signal Posts of the Hook remain, forever linked to the eighth president in the fevered imaginations of people who make stuff up.

Congrats to Oldradio for the FTF!

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Va snpg, n ubbx vf n gbby gung znl cebir hfrshy.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)