The chapel concept is the likely source for the official beginning of our Fraternity when a society bearing the name of Chi Phi was established at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) on December 24, 1824. At that time, Princeton was considered a "Southern" college with its large number of Southern students. In keeping with the chapel tradition, the Chi Phi Society adopted the motto Christou Philoi and a ritual which reflected free thought, protest against oppression and distrust of established church and state.
The Chi Phi Society was organized primarily through the efforts of the Reverend Dr. Robert Baird, a principal of the Princeton Academy, who had graduated from the seminary in 1822. The Society’s chief purpose was to promote the circulation of correct opinions upon Religion, Morals, Education, etc., excluding Sectarian Theology and Party Politics. Each member was obliged to publish some article on a monthly basis addressing these subjects under a pseudonym taken from Greek mythology – Agamemnon, Achilles, Menelaus.
According to Dr. Baird’s biography, the founders of the Chi Phi Society were prominent theologians and educators: Luther Halsey, Jr., a professor; Archibald Alexander, former president of Hampden-Sydney College and trustee of Princeton, 1824-51; John Maclean, vice president and later president of Princeton; Charles Hodge, a professor; James Carnahan, president of Princeton; and James Alexander, a college tutor and later professor in the college and seminary. Later members recorded are seminary students Edward N. Kirk and Charles Hall and college freshman William S. Plumer.
The Chi Phi Society was short-lived, merging after a few years with what was later called the Philadelphia Society, a quasi-Y.M.C.A. still functioning at Princeton into the 1930s. After its demise and as a result of prevailing anti-fraternity atmosphere on the Princeton campus, the very existence of the Chi Phi Society of 1824 was denied and most of its records destroyed.
Joseph W. Yocum, Franklin & Marshall 1868, provided a first-hand account of fraternity life in that era in the 1902 Yearbook: "Fifty years ago, a strong spirit of opposition to college fraternities dominated the policy of American colleges and universities. Trustees cooperated with faculties in destroying them. The college secret society with its rituals and halls and badges and legendary mottoes was substituted for the fraternity whenever possible...
The fraternities languished under the ban of college disapproval; and the literary societies, with their usefulness magnified in the chapel and classroom, and their attractions mystified by the glamour of secrecy, almost displaced them everywhere."
Such was the climate on campus in the 1853-54 school year when John Maclean, Jr., came across various documents once in his Uncle’s possession. Included were the constitution, minute book and ritual of a society which carried the motto Christou Philoi and the date 1824.
[Although Dr. Maclean, then the president of Princeton, later claimed no knowledge of the 1824 society nor any involvement on his part, John Maclean, Jr., was convinced that the papers he uncovered were in his uncle’s handwriting, according to an affidavit in the Chi Phi archives. Since any uncertainty over Chi Phi’s earliest date of birth was grist to the mill of "rival fraternities," it was paramount that the matter be settled. Finally, in 1914, the facts came to light with the publication of Princeton, the work of Professor Varnum Lansing Collins for the American College and University Series. From his research, Collins authoritatively referenced the organization of the Chi Phi Society on December 24, 1824, according to the Biography of Dr. Robert Baird published in 1866.]
Inspired by the discovery of his uncle’s papers, John Maclean, Jr., persuaded fellow classmates Charles Smith DeGraw and Gustavus William Mayer to revive the old society with modifications. These three signed a constitution in Maclean’s room which recreated a society with the motto Christou Philoi in the spring of 1854. In the initiation ritual, the Order referred to itself as "The Ancient Order of Chi Phi."
The Princeton society is believed to have initiated 12 men: Charles Smith DeGraw and Gustavus William Mayer, class of 1857; Abraham De Pue, Delancey Kane, John Maclean, Jr., Henry Clay Platt and Henry L. VanDyke, class of 1858; Charles E. Cossit, Henry W. Williams and Sylvester Woodbridge, class of 1859; and Edwin DeGraw Conover and Lucius Henry Warren, class of 1860.
The chapter was presided over by a "Praeses," and there was a "Scriba," while other members were known as "Socii." The Order’s symbols were the burning taper, skull, crucifix and a cup of wine. The presiding initiation officer, addressed as "Most Noble Sire," was assisted by the "Eminent Commander" and "Prelate." Due to overt anti-fraternity activities on campus, Chi Phis usually met at a distance from Princeton. On one occasion when faculty were in search of covert Greek meetings, the young men outwitted their adversaries by gathering in the least likely setting, the president’s own home.
Falling prey to mounting hostility from the administration, Chi Phi disbanded in 1859 with Sylvester Woodbridge destroying irreplaceable records. Only a few authentic items remain in the archives, including Woodbridge’s certificate of membership. What is alive and well from the Princeton Order is the priceless heritage at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., Chi Phi’s oldest surviving chapter in continuous existence.
Like other providential occurrences in Chi Phi history, the chapter at Franklin & Marshall came about as a result of a chance meeting. When the German-born Gustavus William Mayer, charter member of the Princeton Order, left school for the summer break of 1854, he found work in Pennsylvania to earn money for the fall term. Having a friend in Lancaster, Mayer took lodging there in a boarding house where he met students from Franklin & Marshall. A group of them were eager to join a fraternity and Mayer seized upon this opportunity.
In the early fall, he struck up an acquaintance with one of their group, Joseph Henry Dubbs, a junior, whom Mayer described as "easily the most influential student...to whom I felt myself more particularly drawn." With Dubbs’ backing, Mayer organized the Franklin & Marshall chapter of Chi Phi with seven charter members. Returning to Princeton, Mayer, who was preparing for the ministry, found new anti-fraternity regulations in force and capitulated by withdrawing from active participation in Chi Phi. He altogether lost touch with the Franklin & Marshall chapter.
[Mayer and Joseph Henry Dubbs were reunited at Chi Phi’s semi-centennial anniversary in 1904 in Lancaster, which celebrated the continuous life of the Fraternity and the founding of the Franklin & Marshall chapter. Also present was Thomas Bell, Hobart 1864, who is memorable in Chi Phi history for his chance encounter with Franklin & Marshall Chi Phis in Pennsylvania Station in the winter of 1865-66. This meeting was the Lancaster chapter’s first introduction to the separate Hobart Order of Chi Phi. Of note, it was in this same time frame that a Southern Chi Phi happened on a Hobart Chi Phi in New York City, resulting in their mutual discovery of a new and distinct order.]
Meanwhile the chapter at Franklin & Marshall grew and prospered. In 1867, it organized a chapter at Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg. Of the three chapters of the Princeton Order, the Princeton chapter initiated 12 men; the Franklin & Marshall chapter, 40; and the Pennsylvania College chapter, four, for a total of 56.
In tracing our Fraternity’s origins to the Princeton Order, Dr. Theodore Appel, Franklin & Marshall 1889, states emphatically in The Chronicles of Chi Phi: "...While in no sense was the Chi Phi Society of 1824 a college fraternity as we view it today; nevertheless, it was from it that the ‘Ancient Order of Chi Phi,’ as reorganized in 1854, was directly derived; that certain of the principles of the early organization have come down directly and unchanged and form integral parts of our present organization; and finally that our line of descent is well-marked and its landmarks clear."