The Phi Beta Kappa Society was founded on December 5, 1776 by five College of William and Mary students. The first meeting of the organization took place in the Old Raleigh Tavern’s Apollo Room.
As the first Greek-letter collegiate society, it led the way for the other organizations, both social and honorary, that followed it. Among its hallmarks were a badge, an oath of secrecy, a Greek motto, an initiation ceremony, and a handshake. Phi Beta Kappa’s motto is “Love of learning is the guide of life.”
The chapter at the College of William and Mary might have been a footnote in history had it not been for Elisha Parmele, a former Yale College student and Harvard College alumnus. While in Williamsburg, he became associated with Phi Beta Kappa and obtained charters from the society to establish chapters at Harvard and Yale. When the College of William and Mary faced a temporary closure in 1781, prior the British invasion, the Phi Beta Kappa chapter disbanded. However, Parmele had used the charters to establish the chapter at Yale in 1780 and one at Harvard in 1781. The Dartmouth chapter was founded in 1887 and the society became an honorary academic association.
Parmele became a minister; in those days, most Yale and Harvard grads pursued the ministry. He died at the age of 31. The most lasting accomplishment in his short life was likely establishing those two Phi Beta Kappa chapters in New England.
The first two women to become members of Phi Beta Kappa were members of the University of Vermont’s Kappa Alpha Theta chapter. Lida Mason and Ellen Hamilton Woodruff became the first of many fraternity women who have been members of the organization.
