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Phi Kappa Sigma was founded by Dr. Samuel Brown Wylie Mitchell at the University of Pennsylvania on August 16, 1850. Phi Kappa Sigma International Fraternity has Chapters in both the United States and Canada and currently has over 60 active Chapters, Colonies, and interest groups with over 2,000 active members and 40,000 living alumni.
Fascinated by the prospect of fraternal relations with his fellowman, Mitchell set out to found a new, secret order in the restricted life of the university at that time. His papers indicate that on August 16, 1850, he had determined to install a new order on the campus in the fall of 1850.
Between August 16 and October 19, 1850, Mitchell sought six other men to constitute the Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Sigma. The formal organization of Alpha Chapter occurred at the home of James Bayard Hodge on October 19, 1850.
While the official founding date of the Fraternity is August 16, 1850, Phi Kappa Sigma began celebrating "Founder's Day" on October 19 as a commemoration of the establishment of Alpha Chapter.
Fraternities were not welcomed by faculties and administrators of many universities prior to the American Civil War. Many chapters were forced to exist sub-rosa or become extinct, as a result of the antagonism evidenced toward social fraternities. Along with other fraternities, Phi Kappa Sigma was banned from the University of Pennsylvania campus in 1852. Dr. Mitchell was called before the Board of Trustees and asked "Why do you wear that 'Piratical' ensign?" His answer was not recorded. The fraternity was allowed to maintain a sub-rosa existence with headquarters in Mitchell's rooms at the Philadelphia Hospital .
While the fraternity operated at the clandestine level, Dr. Mitchell and his fellow brothers established chapters at more receptive institutions. Princeton and Lafayette were added in 1853, and Jefferson (now Washington & Jefferson ), Dickinson, Franklin and Marshall, and the University of Virginia were added in 1854. In the mid 1850's, the University of Pennsylvania rescinded its ban on fraternities and in January, 1855, Phi Kappa Sigma was officially recognized by the school. Meetings of the Chapter were held in rented chapter rooms, without dormitory or dining facilities, in various sections of downtown Philadelphia until 1896, when a house was purchased adjacent to the university campus in West Philadelphia.
Phi Kappa Sigma is the only fraternity in whose honor a college was founded and named. On the seventh day of February, 1859, the Phi Kappa Sigma Male College, located at Monticello, Arkansas, opened its doors for students. On the twenty-first of February, in the same year, the Legislature of Arkansas chartered this institution, making it the first institution of higher learning in Arkansas.
The Phi Kappa Sigma College was the only institution of its sort ever known to exist. At this particular period in the history of the United States, many colleges were being established in the South. The spread of education through the southwest was in the ascendant, and the founding of this institution was one of the many steps of progress that were being taken at that time. The college began operation under auspicious circumstances, but seemed likely to grow into a large and successful institution. It was not long, however, until the Civil War broke out. Brother Barrow was firmly convinced that the Union should be preserved and favored the waging of the war by the South under the United States flag "for the rights of the Constitution." But when his state seceded, he turned the college building, a large two-story frame structure, over to the Confederates to be used as a store-house, and did all in his power for the cause of the South.
Hence, the Phi Kappa Sigma Male College was short-lived. After Union troops occupied that section of the country, they took over the building and used it as a hospital until 1864, when they evacuated and burned it. Thus died the practical expression of a noble inspiration. Up until that time the college was the only institution giving work more advanced than that of high school grade in Arkansas.