On June 22, 1844, in room 12 of Old South Hall, 15 Yale College* students from the Class of 1846 organized Delta Kappa Epsilon. The fifteen founders are William Woodruff Atwater, Edward Griffin Bartlett, Frederic Peter Bellinger, Jr., Henry Case, George Foote Chester, John Butler Conyngham, Thomas Isaac Franklin, William Walter Horton, William Boyd Jacobs, Edward VanSchoonhoven Kinsley, Chester Newell Righter, Elisha Bacon Shapleigh, Thomas DuBois Sherwood, Albert Everett Stetson, and Orson William Stow. Bartlett later wrote about the founding and the ideal DKE man, “one who combined in the most equal proportions the gentleman, the scholar, and the jolly good fellow.”
Although, at the very beginning, it was founded with the intention of being only an organization at Yale, a second chapter was founded at Bowdoin College a few months later in November 1844. The chapter at Yale took on the Phi designation and the Bowdoin chapter became Theta. The first convention took place in 1846 in New Haven.
Grant Burnyeat, DKE History and Archives Committee Chair, Western Regional Director, and author of the DKE website’s “This Day in DKE” feature, wrote about another memorable DKE convention. On December 26, 1920, “The New York Times, under the headline ‘DKE Men off for Cuba’ reported that 150 members and officers of Delta Kappa Epsilon left Pennsylvania Station in New York in a special train to visit Cuba and attend the 76th Annual Convention of the Fraternity. The article also stated: ‘All the trains will meet at Savannah, where there will be a reunion of members as guests of Mayor M.M. Stuart [Stewart] and other City officials. Part of the entertainment for the visitors an old-fashioned barbeque. President Menocal of Cuba is a graduate member of the Cornell Chapter of the Fraternity. He heads the committee arranging for the visit of the Americans [and Canadians], and will provide a Cuban warship to convey the delegates and officers from Key West to Havana. Steamers are to be provided for others and airplanes are to make round trips with passengers. The convention banquet and the President’s annual ball and reception at the palace are to conclude the visit.'”
On December 30, 1920, “the first American College Fraternity Convention held off the North American Continent was held in Havana, Cuba under the auspices of President Menocal of Cuba (Delta Chi-Cornell University). The special train that had left Pennsylvania Station on December 26, made stops in Philadelphia, Savannah and Key West, before setting sail on the ship ‘Governor Cobb’. The Convention souvenir was an inlaid box containing 25 Cuban cigars. 300 of the boxes were made and one is available for viewing at the International Headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Another box is housed at Cornell University.”
*Yale College was renamed Yale University in 1864.
Photos courtesy of Delta Kappa Epsilon.
