Delta Tau Delta - History

History

Delta Tau Delta Fraternity was founded in 1858 at Bethany College in Bethany, Virginia (now West Virginia). The social life on campus was typical of the small colleges of the day, with activities centered around the Neotrophian Society, a literary society. The Delta Tau Delta Founders House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

According to Jacob S. Lowe, in late 1858 a group of students met in Lowe's room in the Dowdell boarding house to discuss means to regain control of the Neotrophian Society and return control to the students at large. The underlying controversy was that the Neotrophian Society, in the estimation of the eight men who formed Delta Tau Delta, had awarded a literary prize after a rigged vote. A constitution, name, badge, ritual and motto were devised, and Delta Tau Delta was born.

Important in the early history of Delta Tau Delta was the initiation of two men, Rhodes Stansbury Sutton (Stan for short) and Samuel S. Brown, into the fraternity. Henry King Bell who was located in Lexington, Kentucky, heard of the Civil War's effects on Bethany College and the membership of Delta Tau Delta. After riding to Bethany and realizing that the longevity of Delta Tau Delta at risk, Bell travelled to Canonsburg, Pennsylvania and found two men of distinction: Sutton and Brown. On February 22, 1861 they rode on horseback during a snowstorm of mythic proportions, with roads nearly impassable, from what was then Jefferson College (would later merge with Washington Academy to become the present day Washington & Jefferson College) in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania to Bethany to be initiated and bring the designation of the Alpha Chapter and the governance of the Fraternity back to their home campus.. As membership declined at the Jefferson Alpha Chapter, Jefferson College faced an uncertain merger with Washington Academy. In fact, the Jefferson College was going out of existence and its campus was being moved to Washington, Pennsylvania. Uncertain as to the stability and success of this merger, the men at Jefferson did the responsible thing by allowing the election of a new Alpha Chapter at the General Convention (later to be renamed the Karnea). Ohio Wesleyan then assumed the Alpha designation. Before the Alpha designation was finally transferred to Allegheny College (its current location), the Ohio Wesleyan chapter disappeared temporarily because of a lack of membership.

In 1886, Delta Tau Delta merged with the Rainbow Fraternity, a southern fraternity founded in 1848 at the University of Mississippi. This was in response to Delta Tau Delta's declining number of chapters in the South.

After the Ohio Wesleyan chapter disappeared in 1875, Allegheny College chapter, the fourth and final chapter to hold Alpha designation, assumed control of the fraternity. James S. Eaton, Alpha (Allegheny College) 1875, a “hero” of the fraternity, traveled to Delaware, Ohio, to collect what remained of the organization’s records he could find. After discovering what little he could about the loss of the Ohio Wesleyan members, he brought the “Alpha” designation back with him to Allegheny College. There, a well-managed group of undergraduates handled their own chapter affairs as well as the supervision of the whole fraternity. Delta Tau Delta flourished during Allegheny's era of control; a magazine was established; 15 chapters were founded, of which eight survive (several others were reestablished later).

Delta Tau Delta now has 134 undergraduate chapters and colonies, more than 6,800 active undergraduates, more than 115,000 living alumni, and has initiated more than 157,000 members since its founding.

Members of Delta Tau Delta are collectively, and individually, known as "Delts."