For its fiftieth anniversary, the Fraternity wanted to meet in Oxford, Ohio, during the Christmas holidays. Dr. Lafayette Walker, Miami 1868, the president of the Oxford Female College (later merged with Miami University), had offered the college rooms for convention delegates. But it seemed that accommodations in Oxford would be inadequate for the number expected at a Semi-Centennial gathering.

Columbus was chosen for the convention site, with an anniversary celebration scheduled later at Old Miami. The Convention met in the Hall of Representatives of the Ohio State House, November 21–25, with a record attendance of 208. In the opening session, President Walter B. Palmer of the General Council reported: “At this historic milestone, the fiftieth in the course of Phi Delta Theta, we may look backwards and congratulate ourselves on a course well run. It is interesting and instructive to recall the various stages of our career as a Fraternity: the small beginnings and the gradual growth interrupted by the Civil War when the fires upon our altars all but expired, the slow recuperation, and then the splendid development which has placed Phi Delta Theta foremost among national fraternities.”

Along with ten business sessions, the Phis enjoyed a schedule of social events in the new Chittenden Hotel, where a large Fraternity flag floated from the roof. For the first time at any convention, two of the founders were present, Robert Morrison and John Wolfe Lindley. In the banquet hall, Morrison again used his sea-going metaphor: “Thanks to Divine Providence for beneficent guidance not only in the launching of the good ship Phi Delta Theta but during the storms when sailing was dangerous when shoals and rocks beset the way, we have safely reached a grand haven in this good hour.” Lindley spoke of the organization, founded by six young men who were closely united, that had grown to ten thousand members across the nation. Beside him at the banquet table sat Walter Palmer, who had written the most popular of the Fraternity’s songs:

From six at first we soon became.
Phi Delta Theta for aye!
A mighty host of wondrous fame,
Phi Delta Theta for aye!

At Columbus, plans were begun for a celebration during Commencement week in June 1899. That was a festive time in Oxford, for the university was saluting the seventy-fifth year of its functioning. Fifteen hundred flags decorated doors and shop windows along High Street. The old Main Building had been enlarged and renovated, with a newly furnished library room and a remodeled chapel seating five hundred people.

Following the Class Day exercises, on June 13, Phi Delta Theta began its Golden Jubilee. At 3 o’clock, led by Morrison and Lindley, the Phis marched into the chapel that was brightened with flowers and the Fraternity colors. The two founders, on their first return to Miami in forty-six years, spoke of the changes half a century had brought. Dr. A. A. Kemper, who had been initiated at Miami in 1850, read a poem that began:

Our fifty years are past
But not forever cast
Beneath the shadows of forgetfulness.

In his anniversary oration Alston Ellis, Miami 1867, said, “We have placed a tablet in the wall of the old North Dormitory, in connection with the founding of our beloved fraternity in 1848. We have not added to the fame of those who did such good work fifty years ago . . . . They need no monument to commemorate their work.” After his address, the members made a ‘pilgrimage’ to the neighboring building to see Founder Wilson’s room and the memorial tablet.

Four Ohio Alpha alumni who were members of the university board of trustees had secured the board’s approval of the memorial. The inscribed tablet of russet granite was set into the brick wall between the two windows of the second-story room where the first Phi Delta Theta meeting was held. December 26, 1848. On a polished raised surface in the shape of the Fraternity shield were engraved the names of the six founders and the founding date.

That June evening, 250 guests attended a fraternity reception in the new Herron Gymnasium. The next night Ohio Alpha held a Golden Jubilee banquet in the chapter suite on the third floor of Oxford’s Mansion House. A dozen toasts were followed by as many impromptu speeches. Beginning at nine o’clock, the banquet ended at 4:30 a.m. When the Phis said goodnight, the sky was bright with sunrise.

The Great Seal of the Fraternity was adopted in 1898.

The Constitution provides that, “The great seal of the Fraternity consists of the escutcheon of the coat-of-arms, with the legend: ‘Great Seal of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity,’ and the figures ‘1848.’

An edition of 1,000 of blank certificates of membership, the form adopted by the Convention of 1900, was printed on vellum paper by R. B. Lockwood, New York, July 2, 1901. The first copy of the membership certificate was framed and presented by W. B. Palmer to the Fraternity library in that month. General Council Secretary Francis J. R. Mitchell sent the first copy issued to Dorr C. Casto, Ohio 1901, on August 14, 1901.

Andrew Watts Rogers was welcomed into the world on March 12, 1825, on his parent’s farm near Greenfield, Ohio, equidistant between Columbus and Cincinnati. With his half-brother being a Miami graduate and a citizen of Oxford, he decided Miami would be a favorable place to pursue his education. Andrew was enrolled at Miami for five years, where he was introduced to our great brotherhood.

Rogers was a man of action and thought. Both he and Ardivan Walker Rodgers were tall, strapping, collegiate men. Fellow students were well aware of their friendship.

In 1858 he moved to Illinois to begin a legal practice, encountering Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas along the way. Brother Rogers was a major in the Union army in the battles around Jackson, Mississippi. He served as lieutenant colonel (later colonel), where he commanded the 81st Illinois Voluntary Infantry during the Siege of Vicksburg, the Battle of Nashville, and the Siege of Mobile.

After practicing law in Illinois and Missouri, he became a leader in Missouri education, a member of the Missouri legislature, and a special judge in the Circuit Court.

Brother Rogers died of an affliction of the heart in 1901 and was laid to rest in Warrensburg, Missouri, south of Kansas City. Those who knew Andrew remembered him as genial, frank, open-hearted, and a natural teacher.

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In February, 1900, there came to the General Council an application signed by twelve students at McGill University in Montreal. This overture from Canada was a total surprise and a very interesting one. But to extend Phi Delta Theta beyond the United States was a question for the entire Fraternity, and the McGill students were told that their request would be presented at the General Convention in November.

Meanwhile a Phi from Vermont made a visit to McGill and a member of Maine Alpha entered the Medical School there. At the November Convention in Louisville these men recommended granting the charter, and after extended discussion the Convention voted for expansion into Canada.

Quebec Alpha was installed April 5, 1902 by Phis from Dartmouth and Vermont. The ceremony took place in the Windsor Hotel with paraphernalia loaned from Dartmouth. It was an international affair for a now international Fraternity; at the installation banquet a toast to “The King” was followed by one to “The President.”

Declared in The Scroll “The Phi Delta Thetas of McGill are thrice welcome as fellow Americans, as college men, as Brothers in the Bond.”

Today Phi Delta Theta is active at 11 campuses in Canada and has had 15 chapters in total since 1902. The Fraternity may reach its 10,000th initiate from Canadian chapters during the 175th anniversary of the Fraternity.

Dr. Guy Potter Benton, Ohio Wesleyan 1886, was the thirteenth president of Miami University (1902–11), the fifteenth president of Phi Delta Theta, and the Grand Patron of Delta Zeta. He also served as university president at Upper Iowa University, the University of Vermont, and the University of the Philippines.

Dr. Benton was president of Miami University during the time of Delta Zeta’s founding in 1902 and was instrumental in working with its founders in the early development of the sorority. He was the only man ever permitted to wear the Delta Zeta badge.

Benton died in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is buried next to his wife in the Miami University plot of the Oxford Cemetery. His headstone indicates that he was “President of Miami University” and “National President of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity.” Two buildings on the Miami University campus have been named for him. First was the administration building and auditorium, now known as Hall Auditorium, and the current Benton Hall is an engineering building.

Brother Robert Morrison, Bond # 1, was born on March 15, 1822 in Greene County, Pennsylvania. He grew to be a mature and natural leader, had the calloused hands of a farm youth, and the thoughtful mind of a scholar.

He came to Miami at age twenty-five. Soon after he arrived at college, he won a wrestling match with the campus champion. A tireless walker, he also had an untiring mind. Before coming to Miami, he had spent a freshman year at Ohio University. He taught at the district schools in the hills of Pennsylvania at breaks from pursuing his studies. At Miami University, he became the honor man of his class, graduating magna cum laude. In the fraternity circle, he was a listener as well as a leader. He took counsel from his friends, his gray eyes thoughtful and his strong face often lighting with a smile.

Throughout his life, he kept a sense of humor joined to a sense of honor. He had a long career as a teacher, editor, and minister. Though he was an inland man, he liked sea-going metaphors; he was the first to speak of the good ship Phi and her sturdy crew.

His lifetime commitment to Phi Delta Theta resulted in the opening of four chapters: Miami University, Indiana University, Centre College, and Westminster College. He attended many General Conventions, including the semi-centennial in Columbus, Ohio, in 1898.

Even though the first meeting of Phi Delta Theta was December 26, 1848, the Fraternity celebrates its founding on March 15, the annual birthday of Robert Morrison.

His lifework involved hardship, self-denial, and sacrifice, and he did much to advance the cause of education and the church.

His most famous quote: “To do what ought to be done but would not have been done unless I did it, I thought to be my duty.”

Morrison was the first to sign The Bond of Phi Delta Theta

Morrison designed the Badge of the Fraternity and had the first of its kind created by a Cincinnati jeweler

Upon Morrison’s death, the Fraternity honored him at the 1902 convention and presented Widow Morrison with a paid-in-full mortgage and a lifetime annuity

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Phi Delta Theta was a lasting concern for George Banta, but he also had a career to advance. After reading law in his father’s office in Franklin, Indiana, he began a law practice that led into the insurance business. With his outdoors-loving father, he spent summers in the woods of Wisconsin, where he decided to settle. From an insurance office in Menasha, on the shore of Lake Winnebago, he developed a sub-agency system that made his business the largest in the state. Then, in the 1890s, he retired from insurance, pouring his energies into the Fraternity and beginning a new business venture.

As a boy, George Banta and his brother Charles had printed a small family newspaper using type picked up from the refuse of a local printing shop. Their paper had a short name, the SUN because they had only a few letters of bold-face type. Soon they bought a hand press, then a foot press, first installed in the family dining room but moved to the woodshed when they acquired a small steam engine. When the boiler blew up, George Banta went back to the craftsmanship of hand printing, an avocation he never outgrew.

Years later, when he gave up the insurance business. Banta saw the need for a printing company adapted to college business in the Midwest. At Menasha, he created The Collegiate Press of the George Banta Publishing Company.

In February 1904, the first issue of The Scroll was published by George Banta Publishing Company.

From the April 1904 issue: “Owing to a change of both editors and printers, the February Scroll was issued under some disadvantages. It was also issued in a hurry. It contains chapter letters dated as late as February 25. The last forms were printed March 9, and the edition was mailed March 11. We hope that it reached the great majority of our readers before Alumni Day. We are sure that all were pleased with the typographical appearance of the magazine under the new management. In the opinion of the editors, The Scroll is now handsomer than ever, and it is expected that this standard will be maintained. For this we have to thank our printers, the official printers of the fraternity, the George Banta Publishing Company, and especially the president of the company, Brother George Banta, ex-P. G. C., who has given close personal attention to the typographical details.”

The Scroll was continuously published by the George Banta Publishing Company until the early 1990s.

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In 1905, historic Ohio Alpha joined the long list of chapters able to describe “our new chapter house” in its report to The Scroll. The Miami Phis acquired a ten-room residence at the point where the campus and the town center of Oxford came together.

The house had been there a long time and was where a distinguished alumnus, Reverend David Swing, Miami 1852, had lived when he was on campus. Pastor Swing was one of Miami University’s distinguished alumni, nationally known as a religious leader and orator in the last half of the nineteenth century.

But that house was inadequate for the anticipated growth of campus fraternity life, and some farsighted alumni got involved in building a much larger house.

With the encouragement of Guy Potter Benton, a Phi serving as university president, the Phis acquired at a nominal figure a site on High Street where Benton envisioned the “Fraternity Place” would be. Several other fraternities got their land at the same terms, and the group of fraternity houses became a reality.

The Phis were first, and the cornerstone was laid on November 27, 1907, by Founder Lindley just twenty days before he passed away.

In 1908, the Phis had a public housewarming in the handsome new home, situated only about two blocks from the present house around the corner on Talawanda.

Palmer’s History of Phi Delta Theta was published in 1906. A massive and masterful work of nearly a thousand pages and half a million words, it was the result of many years arduous labor. For all its accuracy and its minute and endless detail, the book was imbued with fraternal warmth and aspiration. “The old motto, repeated solemnly with clasped hands in the chapter room, was Greek, but its spirit was modern.” Such feeling permeates the historical record, bridging the years and the generations. In a foreword to the book venerable John Wolfe Lindley wrote: “It will cement a much closer union of our members . . . It will be a great incentive for making our brotherhood stronger.”

Back in 1879, while working on a Phi Delta Theta catalogue, Palmer had learned of historical papers in possession of several of the oldest chapters. The next year, at the Convention of 1880, the office of historian was created, with Palmer, its inevitable incumbent. This tall, slender, reserved, frail-looking man, with one live hand and the other of gloved metal, had an inner strength and an untiring drive and devotion. When he joined Phi Delta Theta, he had joined for life. He could not write a sketchy or perfunctory history. Every name, date, and place was precious to him; every step and misstep of the Fraternity was important. He gathered records, corresponded with many hundreds of men, and sifted and sorted information. Somehow with his single hand, he classified, filed, and indexed a mass of data. He copied countless documents, compiled endless figures, and began writing his narrative.

In 1884 he reported: “It will probably require three years for me to complete the work, it being my intention to publish the book in 1888—our fortieth anniversary.” That would have been a strenuous full-time task, and Palmer had other obligations. He was busy with newspaper work in Nashville until 1892; then, he became a roving agent for the United States Department of Commerce and Labor. “For many years,” he wrote, “the history has been my constant companion. The bulky manuscript (legal cap paper nearly a foot high) has traveled with me over a large portion of the United States and once accompanied me on an ocean voyage.” One night, escaping from a burning hotel, his first concern was to save the Fraternity manuscript.

In 1884 he had pushed his publication date to 1888; then it was advanced to 1898, the fiftieth anniversary of Phi Delta Theta. But his source material kept growing, and by that date, the work was only half completed. In 1899 he was settled in New York, and there he made steady headway with the history. Illness, resulting from overwork, halted his progress in 1904. But at last, in 1906, the book was published.

The History of Phi Delta Theta has four indexes—all the work of Palmer himself—an index of subjects, of chapters, of alumni clubs, and of names. The names begin with “Abbett, M.J., ’07, Indiana Delta” and end with “Baird, W.P., ’02, Ohio Beta.” Sixty-three close-written pages of names from B through Z were ruined by an accident at the press. To index those thousands of names again would require many months of work. So, the book was published with that, and only that, omission. For the briefest summary, we may take the Introductory word of C. L. Goodwin, Indiana 1883: “From the meeting in the woods, in the old foundry or in the dormitory room of the first days, we journey through these pages to the days of the gathering in the luxurious chapter house of the present, with its parlors, library and billiard room. We see the list of chapters grow from an organization in one Ohio institution in 1848 to sixty-nine active chapters and sixty alumni clubs, and its membership of six to its present roll of twelve thousand living men.” From the day of its publication, this consummate book had been “the admiration and despair” of all fraternity historians.

“No undergraduate member is equipped for fraternity work without this book. No loyal alumnus can willingly forego refreshing his memory of other days and scenes in these teeming pages. Phi Delta Theta owes much to many who have contributed to her development and strength, by word and work, much to her distinguished sons who have brought her glory in winning fame for themselves, but to none is her debt greater than to him who has given of his days and nights so lavishly to perfect her laws and rites and customs, to strengthen her chapters and her chapter roll, who besides carried on to crowning success the staggering task of writing the first history of our great brotherhood, writing it so well that it will be a century hence, as now, the admiration and despair of Greek-letter society historians.” –Hugh Thomas Miller, Indianapolis 1888 (PPGC, Scroll Editor)

—The Scroll, Volume 30, No. 2, pages 263–64

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