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.”
At its beginning, it was founded with the intention of being only an organization at Yale. However, a few months later, a second chapter was founded at Bowdoin College. 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.
Having lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for a few years in the 1980s, I recall walking by the DKE “Shant” at 611½ William Street. It was a narrow building of Gothic design sandwiched between two store fronts and protected by a eight-foot high brick wall. One could see the building by peering through the locked metal gate. Friends who attended Michigan decades ago tell me that they attended parties at the Shant.
An early photo of the DKE Shant
A while back, I was invited to speak at the 125th anniversary of the Michigan Beta chapter of Pi Beta Phi and when I knew I would be in Ann Arbor, I asked if it might be possible to arrange a tour of the Shant. It is now the headquarters of Delta Kappa Epsilon. I cannot tell you how thrilling it was to tour the building which had captured my attention all those years ago.
The Omicron chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon was founded at Michigan in 1855. The Shant’s cornerstone was laid in 1878. The building was designed by William LeBaron Jenney, a Chicago architect who commuted to Ann Arbor. He founded and taught in the University’s architecture program. In 1884, he designed the first skyscraper built, the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago.
In the spring of 1879, the members of the Omicron chapter dedicated the building and it was used as a temple and a meeting place for the chapter. In the early 2000s, the building’s ownership changed from the Omicron chapter to DKE’s Rampant Lion Foundation. In 2004, the building became the home of the fraternity’s national headquarters.
The DKE Shant (Photo by D. Holdship)
One of the items on display is a Cuban cigar box, a favor of the 1920 DKE Convention held in Cuba. Cuba’s President at the time, Mario García Menocal, was an alumnus of DKE’s Cornell University chapter. (See http://wp.me/p20I1i-SG)
President Gerald R. Ford was initiated into the Omicron chapter. He has two bricks in the small courtyard.
*Yale College was renamed Yale University in 1864.
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2015. All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/
