During the 1865-66 school year, some members from Zeta Chapter at Franklin & Marshall were passing through the Pennsylvania Railroad station in New York and encountered Thomas Bell of Hobart College. The Franklin & Marshall men at first took Bell to be a member of their own Princeton Order from either Brown University or Williams College. [For years, Zeta Chapter had been under the erroneous impression that the Princeton Order had established chapters at these institutions.] Taking the lead, Hobart’s convention of 1865 appointed a committee consisting of Edward Lawson, Samuel Tuttle and William Sutphen to investigate the possibilities of a union.
Unlike initial contact between Hobart and the Southern Order, their efforts gained ground and bore fruit: letter from Charles Hendryx, Hobart 1869, to Henry C. G. Reber, Franklin & Marshall 1866, dated May 5, 1867: "Dear Sir, ...You belong to one order, we to another. Nothing in common except the name. I write now entirely in an official manner. I have a proposition to make to you, which on your honor as a gentleman, you will disclose to no one except your own Society men. If it is your desire to unite with us, and you will furnish me with all the information you can...concerning yourselves and your college, I will strive to the best of my ability to have you incorporated with us. The advantage must be obvious to you that we must unite. Lay this matter before your brothers in Chi Phi and obtain their opinion...If you are as you represent (and I do not doubt it in the least) it seems to me you cannot do better than give this proposition a serious investigation. I will give you any information in my power as soon as I hear from you. Write soon, and believe me."
While negotiations were in progress, three members of Upsilon Chapter traveled to Lancaster and initiated the Franklin & Marshall and Pennsylvania College members into the Hobart Order in June 1867. In turn, the Princeton Order initiated the Hobart men. This precedent was followed in 1874 with the Southern Order. (By virtue of his participation on both union committees, Charles Hendryx was the only member formally initiated into all three of the original Orders of Chi Phi.)
Formalities moved with dispatch. A joint committee signed the Resolution of Union at the Astor House in New York City on May 29, 1867: "Resolved that the Chapters of the Chi Phi Fraternity at Lancaster and Gettysburg, Pa., be received into the ‘Secret Order of Chi Phi’ as it exists at Hobart College, Geneva, New York, and other places, and that the graduate and other members of said Fraternity be also received...." Thus was formed what is known in the Fraternity’s lexicography as the "Northern Order of Chi Phi."
Neither of these organizations was basically strong. On the Princeton side, the Franklin & Marshall chapter was in effect the sole proprietor of the Order, with the chapter at Pennsylvania College only a few months old. Likewise on the Hobart side, Delta at Rutgers was brand new, Psi at Kenyon had been extinct for two years and Sigma at Princeton was moribund. Upsilon literally carried the Hobart Order, a revelation which came a surprise to the Princeton side which had been under the impression there were "numerous" chapters alive and well. Altogether, the Princeton Order numbered 61 members and Hobart 85.
The Northern Order’s first convention was held July 9-10, 1867, in Geneva, N.Y. Charles Hendryx was elected Grand Alpha. Delegates established the Fraternity’s first alumni chapter. Named Alpha, it was located in New York City and composed mainly of Delta and Upsilon alumni. In 1867, the use of Greek letters for the names of the officers became official. The office of Grand Delta was created three years later.
At the convention of 1868, delegates came from Rutgers, Hobart, Franklin & Marshall, Pennsylvania College and New York City. (In the new union, Franklin & Marshall took the name Zeta and Pennsylvania College, Theta.) Delegates officially adopted the name "Secret Order of Chi Phi" and elected the first alumnus to the post of Grand Alpha, William Sutphen. The Secret Order patterned its organizational structure and governance on the Hobart documents. Upsilon Chapter at Hobart continued to rank as the Grand Chapter, though the newly organized Alpha Chapter in New York became more influential as alumni moved into the area. Coincident with the growing strength of alumni, it was not long before the rights of the Grand Chapter were abolished and provision made for a permanent set of executive officers empowered to act between conventions.
The convention of 1869 adopted a Grand Seal consisting of a reproduction of the monogram of the badge in the center surrounded by a double circle with the wording "The Secret Order of Chi Phi." This convention also set a benchmark declaring that "the date of the Origin of the Order, A.D. 1824, as it existed at Princeton College, is hereby adopted as the date of origin."
The Chi Phi Chakett appeared in 1868. Published by Zeta Chapter at Franklin & Marshall, it was the first of its kind in fraternity history. Joseph W. Yocum, the paper’s first editor-in-chief, submitted an article in the 1902 Yearbook which unraveled the mystery of the Chakett’s shrouded origins: "Rival fraternities...acknowledged Chi Phi’s prominence and vainly sought, by every means known to resourceful students, to check it. It was then that Zeta Chapter resolved to do something unusual, something that would stamp its individuality upon the mind and heart of the student body, and leave a lasting impression upon the college and university commencement season of 1868....The chapter decided to publish an original paper. To the undergraduates it would seem a daring venture; to the college authorities, a challenge for unofficial recognition; and to the public, to the visitors and guests, a startling innovation. The selection of a name was entrusted to the editor-in-chief. After a long series of deliberations and consultations, it was finally decided to call it the Chi Phi Chakett."
The paper was a successful venture, the surprise of commencement week. It was said to have been the first exclusive fraternity paper ever published at an American college. It received the commendations of the local press, of the rival fraternities, and of the college authorities. The name ‘Chakett’ was one to conjure with. It was a cabalistic puzzle to all the profane. The most ingenious ruses were adopted to discover its meaning. Greek lexicons were consulted to disclose its roots. Every effort to discover its secret meaning failed utterly....It was an arbitrary word, coined for the purpose and for the occasion. It was formed by taking letters from the six secret titles of the officers of the chapter.
"We were all boys at college then, and our achievements were wondrously magnified in our own estimate thereof. But even now, grown to be men of mature years, engaged in the more serious duties of life, and living in the shadow of the great and unknown future, we love to recall the memories of our college days, and live them over again in pleasant reminiscences. To the writer it is an inexpressible pleasure to know that the work he did more than a generation ago still interests so wide a circle of friends and brothers, and that the little word he formed from the mystic letter of our beloved Fraternity is still perpetuated in a more worthy and pretentious publication."
The Northern Order added 11 chapters in six years, starting with Beta at Muhlenberg in September 1868, Xi at Cornell University and Omega at Dickinson College in 1869. It branched to the South in 1871 through the efforts of Edgar Leyden, Cornell 1873, with Sigma at Wofford College in South Carolina, followed by Nu at Washington and Lee in Virginia in 1872. Psi was chartered at Lehigh University in 1872, also Kappa at Brown University. Three new chapters were established in 1873 – Tau at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Phi at Amherst College and Chi at Ohio Wesleyan University. Rho at Lafayette College was the last chapter established by the Northern Order, chartered in July 1874.
In The Chronicles of Chi Phi, Dr. Theodore Appel illuminates the pivotal role of the Washington and Lee and Wofford College chapters in the history of the Fraternity and gives high praise to Edgar Leyden who contributed so much in his brief life: "Nu chapter, like Sigma at Wofford, owed its existence to the energy and enthusiasm of Edgar Leyden, who had been forced to give up his college career on account of his health, and was even then far advanced in tuberculosis...Nu lived only five years, but, without it, the union between North and South would undoubtedly have been postponed indefinitely...."
As recorded in the Chi Phi Quarterly for July 1885, John B. Henneman, Wofford 1882, echoed these sentiments: "Turning over the records of the chapter on the first page, the eye rests upon the autograph of ‘Edgar Leyden’ with the time and place of his birth and initiation into the ‘Secret Order of Chi Phi.’ ...Through his personal efforts -- the gilded bands of friendship and brotherhood, which encircled so many of the noble youths of northern soil, first environed in the mystic tie the hearts of southern boys as well."
The stage was set for the union.
Brief History, The Princeton Order, The Hobart Order, The Southern Order, The Union Of The Hobart And Princeton Orders, The Union Of The Northern And Southern Orders, Post Union,