Curios statements in the Hart Papers begin with Clayton Hart given 8 sheets of paper with cipher numbers by N H Hazelwood to copy, but the Beale Papers only had 3 sheets that number by order of length by the "unknown author".
Then there is this: " We secured confirmation as to the Washington Hotel and its proprietor, Mr Morriss, during the period of 1819 to 1863" basic research once again will show that Robert Morris was Not the constant proprietor for that entire period.
In the original Beale Papers, it is the "unknown author" who succeeded in solving cipher 2 using the DOI, the Hart Papers state "Mr Ward...succeeded in finding the key to cipherNo2".
Furthermore it is stated about the printed Beale Papers pamphlet that "all but a few were destroyed by fire...before a plan of distribution and sale". If this was so, why the months of advertising the pamphlet for sale, the review in the Lynchburg Virginian newspaper, and eventually lowering the price from 50 cents to 10 cents if most were destroyed in a fire "before a plan of distribution and sale"?
George L Hart as way of a disclaimer does state that he "will make an effort to put in writing all that he knows or surmises about the above subject" and "I can only state in a few words what Clayton told me about it".
Surmising and hearsay accounts do not promote confidence in the presented story as being true.
In the entire narrative text of the Hart Papers there is NO mention of an iron box, but George L Hart does relate a story by one Mr Otey, who it so happens to be Hart's wife's first cousin.
This lack of mentioning an iron box, which is mentioned in Ward's original Beale Papers, becomes curious when George L Hart contacts Pauline Innis who is shown an iron box with one torn slip of randomly covered with numbers paper by a Mr Otey.
