![]() To Levere Bunting passed the torch of leadership, and for the next three decades it was the spirit of “Billy” Levere that dominated Sigma Alpha Epsilon and brought the Fraternity to maturity. When Harry Bunting founded the North western University chapter in 1894, he initiated as a charter member William Collin Levere, a remarkable young man whose enthusiasm for the Fraternity matched Bunting’s. In an explosion of growth, the Buntings single-handedly were responsible for nearly fifty chapters of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Together they prodded Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapters to enlarge their membership they wrote encouraging articles in the Fraternity’s quarterly journal, The Record, promoting better chapter standards and above all they undertook an almost incredible program of expansion of the Fraternity, resurrecting old chapters in the South (including the mother chapter at Alabama) and founding new ones in the North and West. In just eight years, under the enthusiastic guidance of Harry Bunting and his younger brother, George, Sigma Alpha Epsilon experienced a renaissance. When Sigma Alpha Epsilon took in Harry Bunting, it caught a comet by the tail. That autumn a 16-year-old youngster by the name of Harry Bunting entered Southwestern Presbyterian University in Clarksville, Tennessee, and was initiated by the young Tennessee Zeta chapter there that had previously initiated two of his brothers. ![]() It was in 1886 that things took a turn for the better. After much discussion and not a little dissent, the first northern chapter had been established at Pennsylvania College, now Gettysburg College, in 1883, and a second was placed at Mt. Older chapters died as fast as new ones were established.īy 1886 the Fraternity had charted 49 chapters, but scarcely a dozen could be called active. In the 1870s and early 1880s more than a score of new chapters were formed, some of them in exceedingly frail institutions. The Reconstruction years were cruel to the South, and southern colleges and their fraternities shared in the general malaise of the region. ![]() Soon other chapters came back to life, and in 1867 the first post-war convention was held at Nashville, Tennessee, where a half dozen revived chapters planned the Fraternity’s future growth. It vas the founding of the University of Georgia chapter at the end of 1865 that led to the Fraternity’s revival. When a few of the young veterans returned to the Georgia Military Institute and found their little college burned to the ground, they decided to go to Athens, Georgia, to enter the state university there. When the smoke of the battle had cleared, only one chapter, at tiny Columbian College in Washington, D.C., survived, and it died soon thereafter. The miracle in the history of Sigma Alpha Epsilon is that it survived that great sectional conflict. Seventy members of the Fraternity lost their lives in the War, including Noble Leslie De Votie, who is officially recorded in the annals of the War as the first man on either side to give his life. Members from the Columbian College, William and Mary and Bethel (KY) were in both armies. Of those, 369 went to war for the Confederacy and seven fought with the Union forces.Įvery member of the chapters at Hampden-Sydney, Georgia Military Institute, Kentucky Military Institute and Oglethorpe University fought for the gray. The Fraternity had fewer than four hundred members when the Civil War began. By the time of the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, fifteen chapters had been established. Its first national convention met in the summer of 1858 at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with four of its eight chapters in attendance. Extension was vigorous, however, and by the end of 1857 the Fraternity counted seven chapters. Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s Historyįounded in a time of growing and intense sectional feeling, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, although it determined at the outset to extend to other colleges, confined its growth to the southern states. Of all existing fraternities today, Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the only one founded in the ante-bellum South. ![]() Their leader was DeVotie who had written the ritual, devised the grip and chosen the name. Noble Leslie DeVotie, John Barratt Rudulph, Nathan Elams Cockrell, John Webb Kerr, and Wade Foster, and three juniors, Samuel Marion Dennis, Abner Edwin Patton and Thomas Chappell Cook. Its eight founders included five seniors. Sigma Alpha Epsilon was founded Maat the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. 8.1 Related Articles When was SAE founded and it’s Founders ![]()
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