Founding of Sigma Chi  | In the fall of 1854 a disagreement arose within the Kappa chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. This chapter consisted of 12 men. Six of them, led by Whitelaw Reid, supported one of the members for Poet in the Erodelphian Literary Society. Four of the other six members, James Parks Caldwell, Isaac M. Jordan, Benjamin Piatt Runkle and Franklin Howard Scobey, refused to vote for the brother because they knew him to lack poetic abilities. The man they did favor for that office was not a Deke. Thomas Cowan Bell and Daniel William Cooper were not members of Erodelphian, but their relation to the disagreement was unqualified endorsement of the four. Thus, they became six.The chapter of 12 was evenly divided in a difference of opinion that ordinarily would have been decided one way or the other and immediately forgotten. But both sides considered it a matter of principle, and could not reach a compromise. During the ensuing months, the groups disagreed so much that their friendship grew distant. To learn more... | |
| History of the Tau Tau Chapter
Forty eight years after the founding of the first chapter of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, the Tau Tau chapter was founded at Washington University in St. Louis. The official founding date is May 4, 1903, and the installing chapter was the Kappa Kappa chapter at the University of Illinois. To learn more... | |
The Founders of Sigma Chi
To learn more about Runkle, Bell, Lockwood, Jordan, Cooper, Scobey, and Caldwell, click here... | |