Department: Archives
The Georgia Psi Mystery
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It all started innocently enough. The e-mail read: “My family has a book belonging to your organization, I believe it to be written in the 1860’s. The book has been in my family for a very long time. It is hand written and includes all the names of those who were members, along with the by-laws for Sigma Alpha Epsilon. All students listed were from Tennessee. Although a SAE member from Macon GA. Did sign the last page.” [sic]
These few simple lines were the start of a mystery that lead to what may be the best, and the most important, new source of early Sigma Alpha Epsilon history in recent memory.
Correspondence with the book’s owner’s son began to produce clues. The book contained the statement “We, the students of the College of William and Mary,” but the book’s owner had checked with school records, and none of the student names matched the college’s student list. The book also indicated that it was an original copy written by Henry R. Goetchius (Georgia 1871) of Columbus, Georgia. The book contained several autographs as well: Four presidents of Georgia Psi at Mercer from 1876-1878 signed the book, along with chapter brothers Lovick R. Jeter (1875) and Methuen T. Freeman (1879). Freeman’s signature indicated that he was a delegate to the Richmond Convention in 1877.
The mystery continued. What chapter had students almost exclusively from Tennessee? According to early Fraternity catalogues, the only one that met the criteria was Tennessee Lambda at Cumberland, during the period from 1867-1871. What could all of this mean? What did Virginia Kappa, Georgia Beta, Georgia Psi and Tennessee Lambda have to do with each other in a book that appeared to span two decades and a civil war? And how did this book happen to be in a family for at least four generations with no known Sigma Alpha Epsilon ancestors?
After some correspondence and discussion with the book’s owner, Kathleen Vanscoy, and her son, Robert Sellers, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Foundation was able to secure the book, on loan, for a year so that we may be able to study, photograph and exhibit it while learning from this valuable resource. The book, a small red ledger with numbered pages, arrived late in the afternoon of October 3, 2008, and brought with it even more questions.
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