Local History
Cadet Charles A. Weller, 1878
By Karl W. Fischer, Dickinson '25, Indiana '25
ALPHA PHI CHAPTER at the then Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical college, Blacksburg, Virginia, founded March 10, 1877, was the seventh and last Beta Theta Pi chapter to be organized in the Old Dominion. Here for a few years a score of members of the fraternity faced economic and political troubles that would have wrecked a much stronger group.
Looking backward, it was, perhaps, unwise to enter the college in 1877, especially when members of the other six chapter in the state were not wholly in favor of this expansion. Virginia had been a center of interest in the fraternity since 1850 when Hampden-Sydney college chapter was established.
In the intervening years chapters had been organized at the University of Virginia, Washington [and Lee] University, Virginia Military Institute, Richmond college, Randolph-Macon college and the College of William and Mary. Part of this expansion fever was generated at the 1872 convention, held in Richmond, when many boys who had worn the gray and followed the Stars and Bars renewed their fealty at the altars of Beta Theta Pi.
The Richmond chapter had been organized the year before the convention by two Betas from Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee; in 1873 a Virginia alumnus founded the Randolph-Macon group and a Richmond Beta and another V.M.I. member organized the Williamsburg chapter in the centennial year.
Had the founders of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical college chapter visioned the political discontent that was to shadow their college for a score of years, they might have waited until a more favorable time. But Charles Martin, Jefferson '42, the Beta leader who carried the fraternity to the South, was not a man to mark time. He had crossed the mountains many years before and with the help of William Henry West, Jefferson '46, taken the diamond and three stars to venerable Hampden-Sydney, April 24, 1850.
Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical college was granted under the congressional 1862 land grants college act. Each new institution was to incorporate agricultural and mechanical arts in its curriculum and military training was to be included. This act enabled Virginia to claim its share and Montgomery county raised $20,000 and offered as physical equipment a brick building and grounds at Blacksburg known as Preston and Olin Institute. This school had been opened privately in 1852. In 1872 the Virginia general assembly accepted the state's share of the act and the governor appointed of a Board of Visitors for the new agricultural and mechanical college. The Montgomery county land, owned by the Preston family, was bought and the manor house, "Solitude," was to be the center of political bickering and student rebellions for several years. The new institute opened that same year with 132 students, its only building a brick structure formerly occupied by the private school. Classes met all summer long, following the Southern custom, while the long vacations were in the winter time. The first president was Charles Landon Carter Minor, who was graduated from the University of Virginia in 1857 and had served as an ordnance captain in the war. He taught at Sewanee before coming to Blacksburg and later in life wrote an interesting book, The Real Lincoln.
His faculty included Gray Carroll, professor of Mathematics, Charles Martin, professor of English, and Brigadier-General James Henry Lane, of North Caroline, who had fought at Manassas, was commandant. General Lane was a V.M.I. graduate of 1854 and in 1863 when he became a Brigadier-General James Henry Lane, of North Carolina, who had fought at Manassas, was commandant. General Lane was a V.M.I. graduate of 1854 and in 1863 when he became a brigadier at twenty-nine, was one of the youngest general officers in the Confederate army. Students roomed and boarded in town. The next year faculty changes began, and shortly after the organization of the college the faculty was divided into two factions as to policy, discipline into two factions as to policy, discipline and management of the institute. This resulted in a personal difficulty between the president and the commandant.
By 1874 other buildings had been erected, a president's house had been built and the number of students was increasing. Pi Kappa Alpha, founded at the University of Virginia in 1868, had organized a chapter at Blacksburg in 1873 and the group existed until the same year the Beta died, 1880. Sigma Alpha, a Virginia fraternity known as Black Badge, also was represented while the Betas were there. Kappa Sigma had a sub rosa group at the college 1874-1890. Thus as Professor Martin taught his "mechanical English" those first few years, he planned to bring his own fraternity to the new campus. On August 10, 1876, with 224 students registered in the college, a group headed by Benjamin Mosby Smith, Hampden-Sydney '77, a cousin of Professor Martin's, began to work for a charter from Beta Theta Pi. Smith was encouraged by William Augustus Wade, Hampden-Sydney '73. The petition was forwarded to the presiding college, and under the same pernicious voting system that had been in use many years, the petition was granted although it did not receive the real approval of the other chapters in Virginia.
When the Monmouth chapter submitted its report to the 1877 convention, it asserted vigorous protests had been received from a number of Southern chapters because of the "low standard of the institution." This phrase, characteristic of the period, was no reflection on the personnel of the college group, its educational standing or its professors. It attempted to describe the conditions of the day which brought 200 students to college for one session, and thirty or forty the next. In other words, a chapter at such an institution could not depend on a regular freshman class and might become inactive at any time because of lack of material.
The next year after Beta Theta Pi entered the college which later became Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the Kappa Alpha Order organized a chapter there. Later, Kappa Sigma Kappa, another Virginia fraternity, made an attempt to establish a lasting circle at the school, and Phi Alpha Chi is believed to have been founded at Blacksburg in 1883 and to have established seven Virginian chapters before it, too, died. Thus it will be seen that almost all of the chapters at the college were from native soil - all of them, in fact, except Beta Theta Pi whose parent chapter, Hampden-Sydney, was much older than any of the group. But there was not much Greek soil in Blacksburg and this completed the circle of fraternities in the institution.
Such a small group of Betas had definite leaders. First was Ben Mosby Smith, the Hampden-Sydney Beta, who founded the chapter. Then there was Charles Ashburn Weller, valedictorian of the class of 1878, ranking cadet captain for whom living alumni of Alpha Phi have a lasting and abading affection even after fifty years. William Henry Perkinson, '78, took debating honors. Herring, '82, was a Beta son of John Alexander Herring, Virgina '59, and his two brothers were Omicron members, Charles Griffin Herring, '92, and George Griffin Herring, '94.
The interesting chapter group picture, taken in 1878, reproduced with this article was supplied by Mrs. H. G. Herring, Anchorage, Kentucky, a kinsman of Henry Griffin Herring, '82. The individual photographs are arranged around a secondary Beta Badge, authorized in the seventies, and in the center is the allegorical picture used for many years as catalogue frontispiece. Shown in the group, starting with Walter Nichols at the top are - clockwise - Kenneth S. Burr, Weller, Barton Pitts, Herring, C. S. Williams, A. T. Scanland, W. H. Perkinson, H. W. West, M. C. Eure and R. H. Washington. There is some doubt whether Burr was a regular member inasmuch as his name does not appear in any catalogue. One or two of the pictures were taken in the college cadet uniform as may be seen.
As early as July 7, 1877, the University of Michigan chapter, then presiding, had received another protest against Alpha Phi. The University of Virginia Betas had written to Ann Arbor, and Michigan reported:
We are in possession of a protest from Omicron against the baby, Alpha Phi, Blacksburg, VA. Omicron requests that it be presented to the convention as she will probably not be presented...
Instead of commenting on the protests against the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical college chapter, Lambda replied:
What is to become of us, if Omicron, one of the first chapters of our Fraternity and situated in the leading university of the South cannot afford to send a delegate to our convention once in three years?...
But the convention considered the protest and appointed a committee to investigate. William Chester White, Hampden-Sydney '80, Virginia '81, made the trip. The Reverend Mr. White, who now lives at Churchville, Virginia, and has been a stated clerk of the Presbyterian church for almost forty-three years and a loyal Beta fifty-six years, well recalls his trip to Blacksburg, following the 1880 convention which he attended.
While a student at the University of Virginia he visited the Alpha Phi boys. "I liked the boys of our chapter," he writes, "and was sorry to have to advise the withdrawal of the charter. There were very few members and those who were members thought, as I recall, that there was not much chance of doing much there."
Dr.White was well acquainted with Ben Mosby Smith inasmuch as Smith's father, the Reverend Benjamin M. Smith, was his professor of Hebrew at Union Theological Seminary where he was graduated in 1886.
The investigator's report was received by William Fletcher Boyd, Ohio '66, secretary of the Beta Theta Pi Board of Directors March 21, 1881, and it asserted:
...He reported that the chapter had voluntarily surrendered her charter to the Board of Directors, and transmitted to me the archives of the chapter...
Dr. White is a former District Chief and in 1883 wrote the first suggestion that led to the publication of Special 2 of the magazine with its lists of active members. He suggested all the semi-annuals then being printed by each chapter be sent to one address and they be compiled into one list. Like many loyal Beta, he is a member of the Baird Fund.
In October, 1879, Henry Watters West, '80, corresponding secretary, reported in Beta Theta Pi that there were nine members. The next month the Board of Visitors removed President Minor and Professor Martin. The legislature which met the winter removed the entire Board of Visitors, and the Governor made his new appointments so late they could not be confirmed. The board then decided on a complete reorganization of the college, and in 1880 declared all chairs vacant. John L. Buchanan served as second president for a six months' period when he was replaced by Colonel Scott Shipp, a former Virginia Military Institute superintendent, who served but one day in the post. In June 1881, Dr. Buchanan again was elected president.
When the legislature met in 1881-82, it again removed the Board of Visitors and the new governor, William E. Cameron, appointed a new board which again set about to reorganize the college. These campus changes took place during the very days when Alpha Phi chapter was attempting to obtain enough men to function as a strong group. The departure of Professor Martin must have saddened the Betas, and virtually no chapter meetings were held after 1880. All these changes on the campus caused much student unrest. A contemporary picture of one of the buildings at this period includes a painted protest of what some students considered a political alliance among state and educational leaders.
The Betas sometimes met in privates rooms according to Nathan Crawford Taliaferro, '82, although Mr. West recalls a second story meeting room in a store building occupied by John L. Eakins, across from the campus. Since college stores sometimes carry merchandise to tempt a passing student, it is not impossible that the "dorg" at Alpha Phi came from the Eakins' emporium!
The 1880 Beta general convention, held in Baltimore, ordered that five chapters, including the "Virginia State" group be investigated while two Alpha Phi members, Perkinson and Barton Pitts, '81, were at the convention to give a first-hand report. Five young men in Baltimore had their picture taken and a copy is included with this article. The second from the left has been identified as Weller, the Alpha Phi cadet captain, and the others may be Betas attending this same convention. As a contemporary view of college students in the eighties, it provides a view of what the well-dressed young man wore. The artificial grass was by courtesy of the studio.
After the fifty-second chapter of Beta Theta Pi, Alpha Phi, surrendered its charter, three members of Alpha Phi resigned from the fraternity with several pledges joined the Kappa Sigma chapter. They were Joseph Simmons Musgrave, Emmerson Land, Jr., and Thomas Marr, all of the class of 1882. Later two sons of Professor Martin who attended the college joined the same fraternity and one of them, Stanley Martin, served as worthy grand treasurer of Kappa Sigma for twenty-seven years. After the first turbulent years at Blacksburg, the school had an opportunity to develop into a standard state agricultural and mechanical college, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and as such made commendable progress in Virginia. Joseph Deputy Eggleston, Hampden-Sydney '86, was called to the presidency in 1913 and served until 1919 when we returned to preside over his own Alma Mater.
