Alpha
Sigma Phi was founded at Yale
College in 1845 as a secret sophomore society composed
of many of the school's authors, poets, athletes, and scholars.
Upon rising through the ranks of the school, members shared
membership with Alpha Sigma Phi in Skull and Bones, Scroll
and Key, and eventually Wolf's Head.
- Louis
Manigault was the son
of Charles I. Manigault, a wealthy rice planter from
South Carolina who traced his ancestry to a Huguenot
refugee who fled from Louis XIV's persecution and came
to America in 1691.
- Stephen Ormsby Rhea was the son of John Rhea,
an important
cotton planter of Louisiana who helped open the disputed territory of West Florida
and made it a part of the U.S. and state of Louisiana.
- Horace Spangler Weiser,
of York, Pennsylvania,
was a descendant of Conrad Weiser, also a refugee
from Europe who became famous in the French and
Indian War, representing several colonies in
treaty negotiations with Native Americans.
Manigault and Rhea met at St. Paul's Preparatory School
near Flushing, New York, where
both were members of the same literary society and were
preparing themselves for admission to Yale. Weiser attended
a private school in New Haven, and he met Rhea early
in his freshman year, who introduced him to Manigault.
Once
at Yale, Manigault and
Rhea became members of Yale's Calliopean Literary Society,
and Weiser was a member of the Lininian Literary Society.
Manigault was very much interested in the class society
system at Yale and noted the class fraternities provided
experience for their members and prepared them for competition
in literary contests. The sophomore class there had only
one society, Kappa Sigma Theta, which displayed an attitude
of superiority toward non-fraternity men.
Manigault revealed to his friend Rhea
a plan for founding another
sophomore society. Rhea agreed
and enlisted Weiser to become the three founders of Alpha
Sigma Phi. Their first official meeting was held in Manigault's
room on Chapel Street on December 6, 1845. The constitution
and ritual were then written and the fraternity pin was
designed. The first pledge class, of 14 members, was
initiated on June 24, 1846.
After the birth of Alpha
Sigma Phi, an intense
rivalry began between Alpha Sigma
Phi and Kappa Sigma Theta. The rivalry expressed itself
in their publications, Kappa Sigma Theta's "The Yale
Banger" and Alpha Sigma Phi's "The Yale Tomahawk." In
1852, the editors of
The Tomahawk were expelled after violating faculty
orders to cease publication. However, the rivalry between
the organizations continued until 1858, when Kappa
Sigma Theta was suppressed by the faculty.
The first charter was granted
to Amherst College (now
the University of Massachusetts)
as Beta Chapter, but it only lasted about six months,
at which time the parent chapter requested that it
dissolve and return the constitution. However, a fragmentary
document in the Yale library suggests that Beta was
chartered in 1850 at Harvard but lived a very short
life due to a wave of Puritanism. The chapter at Harvard
was revived in 1911 as Beta Chapter but only survived
about 20 years; the charter was withdrawn due to the
Harvard's anti-fraternity environment. When Amherst
was restored in 1854, it was designated as Delta Chapter.
However, when the chapter at Marietta College was chartered
in 1860, it too was given
the Delta designation, despite the parent chapter being
aware of this discrepancy.
When the Civil War swept
the United States,
almost every member of Delta at Marietta enlisted in
the Union Army. Three of the brothers gave their lives
for the Union cause. Former chapter presidents William
B. Whittlesey and George B. Turner fell on the battle
fields of Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain. They willed
their personal possessions and their swords to the chapter,
which treasured those mementoes until the chapter closed
in the mid 1990s.
During the Civil War, the mother chapter at Yale was
rent by internal dissension. Because less attention was
being given to the sophomore class societies, some Alpha
Sigma Phi members pledged to Delta Kappa Epsilon, a junior
class society, and attempted to turn the control of Alpha
Sigma Phi over to Delta Kappa Epsilon. However, the attempt
was thwarted by members of Alpha Sigma Phi who had pledged
to the other two junior class societies. A conflict ensued,
and the faculty suppressed Alpha Sigma Phi to end the
disorder. However, the traditions of Alpha Sigma Phi
were carried on by two new sophomore class societies,
Delta Beta Xi and Phi Theta Psi. Louis Manigault sought
to renew his loyalty and friendship with his brothers
of Alpha Sigma Phi, and agreed with Rhea and Weiser to
consider Delta Beta Xi its true descendant. They were
unaware at the time that Delta Chapter at Marietta still
existed as Alpha Sigma Phi.
The second
founders were:
- Wayne Montgomery Musgrave, an honors graduate
of New York University,
Yale and Harvard. He
provided the organizational
spark that fanned Alpha Sigma Phi into national prominence.
- Edwin
Morey Waterbury,
born in Geneseo, New York on September 26, 1884, son
of Dr. Reuben A. and Frances Waterbury. Dr. Waterbury
was an educator, and vice-principal of the New York
State Normal School at Geneseo from 1873 to 1895.
With the inactivation of Delta Beta Xi at Yale, Alpha
Sigma Phi was kept alive only
at Marietta by Delta. At Yale, four friends agreed in
a conversation over a card game that an organization
was needed that was open to all students, instead of
representing only the sophomore or junior classes. The
four friends were Robert L. Ervin, Benjamin F. Crenshaw,
Arthur S. Ely, and Edwin M. Waterbury.
Other members soon
joined the group in their
mission, the first of which were
Fredrick H. Waldron and Wayne M. Musgrave. Ervin knew
some of the alumni brothers of Delta at Marietta and
asked them to send the first letter to Delta. On March
27, 1907, Ely, Crenshaw, Musgrave, Waldron, and Waterbury
traveled to Marietta and were initiated into Alpha Sigma
Phi. Upon returning to New Haven, they initiated the
other friends they had recruited into the new Alpha chapter
at Yale.
Many of the old Alpha members returned to Yale
upon hearing the news
of the refounding, and helped acquire the fraternity's
first piece of real estate, the "Tomb",
a windowless two story building. No non-member was allowed
entrance. No member could speak of the interior of the
building, and were even expected to remain silent while
passing by the exterior of the building.
Theta Chapter at the University
of Michigan
A new national organization was
formed at an Alpha Sigma Phi
conference at Marietta in 1907,
and within a year there were three new chapters: Zeta
at Ohio State, Eta at the University of Illinois, and
Theta at the University of Michigan. In 1910 another
convention was held with the members of the former
chapters at Yale, Amherst and Ohio Wesleyan University,
and a delegation from the Yale Delta Beta Xi fraternity.
All of these pledged to anew their loyalty to a restored
Alpha Sigma Phi.
Alpha Sigma Phi
survived World War I
fairly easily and even recruited many new members during
those years. In the post-war era, Alpha Sigma Phi expanded
at the rate of one chapter per year. In 1939, Phi Pi
Phi merged with Alpha Sigma Phi, as the Great Depression
left that fraternity with only five of its original twenty-one
chapters. World War II hit Alpha Sigma Phi hard, with
many brothers losing their lives due to the conflict,
forcing many chapters to close.
 On September 6, 1946, Alpha Kappa Pi merged with Alpha
Sigma Phi. Alpha Kappa Pi had never had a national office,
but was still a strong fraternity. During the war, they
had lost many chapters and realized the need for a more
stable national organization. Alpha Sigma Phi expanded
again in 1965 by five more chapters when it merged with
Alpha Gamma Upsilon.
The 1980s found a younger generation of leaders taking
the reins of the fraternity. Keeping in mind one of its
oldest traditions, being a fraternity run by undergraduates,
the leadership and undergraduates began expanding in
new directions. |
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