From the Archives

The Emerald Recovered

Found! Sigma Pi's Birthday

In the year 1905, while the writer was a student at Vincennes University, he was appointed chairman of a committee of Tau Phi Delta, the predecessor of Alpha Chapter, to conduct a research concerning the circumstances attending the establishment of the Fraternity. This step was taken because of the fact that the proceedings of the chapter for the first year of its existence had been lost, leaving some uncertainty as to its early history. Considerable correspondence was had by this committee with the founders and other early members of the Fraternity. The responses brought forth many interesting and important facts, but in every instance one essential fact was lacking, and that was the exact date of the first meeting of the founders. All agreed that the chapter came into existence "early in the spring of 1897,'' but no one was found who would venture a more definite statement of the exact date.

There the matter rested, so far as the writer was concerned, until something more than a year ago, when he became a member of the committee created by the last convocation to compile a history of the Fraternity. When that duty was assumed a conference was had with Grand Herald Byron R. Lewis (Vincennes 1902), and the conclusion was reached that the time was ripe to clear up this uncertainty with respect to the history of Alpha Chapter, if it was physically possible to do so. A careful and exhaustive survey was first made as to the condition existing at Vincennes University at the time and immediately prior to the time the Fraternity came into being. Particular attention was given to every form of student activity of which any information could be had. College periodicals, catalogues, bulletins, yearbooks, and other similar materials were carefully gone over as a basis for further research. Then just when the committee was about to despair of solving the perplexing question as to when the fraternity was founded, a discovery was made which quickly produced the desired results. It is first necessary to say that for about three quarters of a century there has been on the statute books of the state of Indiana a law requiring the county recorder to bind and preserve files of two newspapers published in the county espousing the cause of the two predominating political parties. In the dark and musty recesses of the county courthouse was found a dingy volume containing the files of a newspaper, now defunct, which was published during the year 1897. In this paper there appeared quite regularly during the spring of 1897 a column under the heading, "Vincennes University News." Here, at last, was the key that was to make it possible for Sigma Pi to have a birthday party and, perchance, a Founders' Day banquet each year! From these notes it was learned that on January 26, 1897, Miss Malott, a member of the faculty, read a paper on "College Fraternities" at the chapel exercises. This paper must have been more interesting than the usual small-college chapel discourse, for we learn from a subsequent issue of the same paper that on February 26, 1897, "a number of the young men students have formed a secret society and have appointed a committee to prepare a constitution and by-laws." By following up the facts disclosed by the above items it has been possible to identify the "secret society" referred to as Alpha Chapter. Such, in brief, are the circumstances and the evidence by which the Sigma Pi may be said to have been founded on February 26, 1897.

This article was printed in The Emerald, Vol. 9, No. 1, in April 1922, and was written by HGS Curtis G. Shake (Vincennes 1903).