1903-04 Volume 28 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

254 THE SCROLL.burg in 1902. Its author, Mr. Van Cleve, was graduated atOhio Wesleyan in 1879. Hs mentions that the book wasbegun in 1879, ^'^^ 'hat four men resigned the task before heundertook it. The history gives evidence of much researchinto the fraternity's archives, and many interesting facts arerecorded. Some of these facts are of interest to other Greeksas well as to Phi Psis. The history of the fraternity fills 194pages, sketches of the chapters no pages.* K * was founded at Jefferson College, at Canonsburg,Pa., near Washington, Pa., where Washington College thenexisted. The two institutions later united as Washington andJefferson College, at "Little Washington," asthe town is calledin Western Pennsylvania, to distinguish it from the nationalcapital. There were two founders—C. P. T. Moore and W.H. Letherman (changed afterward to Letterman); the latterwas valedictorian of his class.They had each been solicited to unite themselves with the chapters offraternities then in existence at Jefferson, but the character of the men whocomposed these chapters was not of the kind that they desired to emulate;and so, inspired with the thought that they might be the founders of a neworder of the very highest sort, they asked several friends to come to Letherman'sroom to join them in this noble work. Of those invited none camebut Moore.This meeting was on February 19, 1852, before which dateMoore and Letherman had "written out a constitution." Apicture of the house in which this meeting was held was notsecured for the history, but a half-tone of it appeared in theShieldiox August, 1903, as noted in THE SCROLL for last October.Two members were added February 23, one February25 and one February 27. At the end of the college sessionthe chapter numbered seven, but great pains were taken, tokeep its existence from being known. How long it remainedsub rosa is not mentioned.B 0 n had established a chapter at Jefferson, 1842; * r Ahad been founded there, 1848. The historical sketch ofPennsylvania Alpha, the parent chapter of * K *, says: "Therivalry of the young chapter with B 0 II and SPA was of thefiercest variety, and the bitterness engendered often broughton fistic and other encounters."T. C. Campbell, initiated January 27, 1853, was 'facileprinceps, the fraternity man of his time," though "for flagrantviolation of fraternity law," he was once expelled and laterreinstated. In a manuscript chapter paper, called the AmicusMysticus, he thus reviled a rival fraternity; "From the wholemass of living beings on the face of the earth, there cannot