Our Heritage    

     Much rich history has been sown in the fertile soil of Virginia’s famed Shenandoah Valley. While many towns of this valley have laid claim to immortality, many people consider the tiny, Blue Ridge Mountain town of Lexington a small piece of heaven. This town, that witnessed much of the Civil War, is the epitome of heritage and tradition. It is the site of Natural Bridge – one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World – it serves as the final resting place of Generals T.J. "Stonewall" Jackson and Robert E. Lee; it is the birthplace of famed "Texian" revolutionist Sam Houston; and it is the home of two great universities – Washington & Lee University and the Virginia Military Institute.

     Lexington had become a college town even before the United States became a country. Founded in 1749, Augusta Academy would become Liberty Hall Academy in 1776. The school was renamed Washington College in George Washington’s honor after he contributed $20,000 worth of stock to the school in 1796. After the death of the school’s most illustrious president, Robert E. Lee, the college became known as Washington & Lee University.

     In 1865, at the end of the bloodiest war our nation has ever seen, the two institutions were but shadows of their former selves.  VMI had been burned nearly to the ground and W&L was damaged when it was used as Union barracks. With no money and no president, W&L had somehow remained open throughout the war.  During this time it served primarily as a preparatory school, with four professors teaching about forty boys who were too young to serve in the Confederate army.

     However, the school’s trustees were determined to save their desperate college. On August 4, 1865, they met to discuss applying for a loan and the prospects for the college’s presidency. At that meeting, a board member rose and said that he had heard that General Lee was looking for a position that would allow him to earn a living for his family. Brashly, the trustees immediately elected Lee as president – contingent on his acceptance of course. They offered him an annual salary of $1,500, and the use of the house and garden and a small percentage of the tuition.

     Everyone in the country knew that Lee could lead soldiers but few remembered that he also had served as superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. For Lee, the position in tiny Lexington was an opportunity to lead his people not into battle, but into recovery. On August 31, 1865, Lee became the president of a school named for his mentor and his wife’s grandfather, George Washington.

     "I think it is the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of the country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony," he wrote to the trustees in his letter of acceptance. "It is particularly incumbent of those charged with the instruction of the young to set them an example of submission to authority."

     Beset by the war’s legacy of poverty, only 50 students were enrolled at the time of Lee’s inauguration. As word of his presence spread, others arrived, until finally, 146 young men had registered for the college’s first post-war session. Among those first students were three of KA’s four founders, James Ward Wood, William Nelson Scott, William Archibald Walsh. Founder Stanhope McClelland Scott, brother of William Nelson Scott, entered the college’s second post-war session, the spring semester of 1866. 

The Founders

James Ward Wood was born December 26, 1845 in rural Hardy County, Va., (which is now in West Virginia). It was in part Lee's acceptance of the presidency of Washington College, and a new job as head master of the Ann Smith Academy for girls, that caused the Reverend John A. Scott to move his family from Hardy County to Lexington. The Scott and Wood families were friendly acquaintances, so Wood's father sent his son to Washington College, not only to study under Lee, but also to have him profit under the conservative influence of Reverend Scott. The Reverend's influence must have been strong as Wood soon became known as the 'College Bard' on campus by reason of his poems and essays that appeared in the campus paper and by the fact that he was known to enrich his conversation with biblical quotations. An 1866 essay that he wrote gives insight into his thoughts on the young K.A. fraternity. "Let us be just, charitable and good; let us be great by the prayers of widows and orphans rather than by their tears and lamentations," he wrote. "Let us be of one mind and faith, let us banish all that is evil and cling to all that is good. Let us pull together and pull hard; but above all things let there be no doubt that we are pulling right." In January, 1867, Wood was sent home by President Lee for failing to keep up with his studies. After a brief stint of traveling in the West, he returned to Hardy County to farm, where he eventually became a notary, magistrate, judge and representative in the West Virginia State Assembly. He died January 7, 1926 and is buried in the Ivanhoe Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Lost City, W. Va.

William Nelson Scott was born in Houston, Va., on September 25, 1848 and entered Washington College in the fall of 1865 at the age of seventeen. Since he had known Wood in Hardy County, it was natural for him to pal around with him and become involved in Wood's venture of forming a new fraternity on campus. At the founding, Scott was elected president of the group and saw the fledgling fraternity through its first trying year. It was Scott who asked Samuel Zenas Ammen, who would later transform the K.A. fraternity into Kappa Alpha Order, to join. Ammen said of Scott, "I have never seen any in equal to him in charm of voice, in solemnity of manner, in dignity of demeanor, or in general impressiveness in the initiatory customs." After graduation, Scott entered Union Theological Seminary and completed his course of study there, and in 1872, became a Presbyterian minister. After presiding over a parish in Richmond, Va., for a few short years, he moved to Galveston, Texas where he was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church for 19 years. After surviving the Great Hurricane of 1900, that decimated the island and killed thousands, he returned to Staunton, Va., where he remained pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church until his death, June 3, 1919. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va.

William Archibald Walsh, of Richmond, Va. was born Sept. 11, 1849. He was the third man to join Wood's enterprise of founding a fraternity and it was in his dorm room that Wood and Scott passed time between classes. The friendship that sprung from these meetings led Scott and Wood to ask Walsh to help them found their organization. After just one year at Washington College, Walsh left in June 1866 to take up his family's business as a merchant. In 1874 he spent time traveling in Africa on safari. Returning home to Richmond in impaired health, he died two years later in 1876 and is also buried in Hollywood Cemetery. Wood later wrote, "The principal work the first year (December 1865 - June 1866) was done in Walsh's room. Walsh was bright and capable, and he helped me a great deal, especially in connection (designing) with the badge." It is likely that Walsh financed the first seven badges from a Lexington jeweler named D.M. Riley.

Stanhope McClelland Scott, the younger brother of William, was 15 years old at the time of Kappa Alpha's founding, making him the youngest founder. Even though he did not enter Washington College until January 1866, as the brother of Will Scott, he was involved in the early meetings and is considered a founder. Graduating in 1871 from Washington College, Scott went on to study medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. After receiving his medical license, he returned to the land he knew as a boy and established a medical practice. Dr. Scott practiced medicine in Western Maryland and Northern West Virginia for over 50 years. The last surviving founder, he died September 4, 1933, and is buried in the Terra Alta, W. Va. cemetery.

The Beginning

     The story of how Kappa Alpha Order came into being revolves around Wood’s life and his experiences. He was indeed, the driving force and impetus that sparked life into our Order.

     Even though he was from what is now West Virginia, his family was sympathetic to the Confederate cause as his family’s home was actually about fifteen miles from the newly created border. In 1861, at the age of fifteen, Wood joined a local cavalry regiment to fight with the Confederacy in the Civil War. Since he was familiar with the area, he spent most of his time patrolling the Virginia/West Virginia border on the lookout for a westward advance by the Union. Near the end of the war, he was at home on a furlough when he decided to visit an old girlfriend. Heeding the dangers that could lurk on mountain roads during war time, he stuck his cavalry pistol in his bootleg. As he mounted his horse, the pistol accidentally discharged, sending the ball ripping through his foot, severely wounding him. Tragic as this event was, it was a blessing in disguise for the future Kappa Alpha Order.

     While he recuperated, he spent his time at a local country store awaiting news of the war’s end and listening to the owner of the store, a gentleman by the name of Van Arsdale, tell stories about the mysteries of freemasonry. (Freemasonry is a secret men’s fraternal organization that has existed for over a thousand years. Members are known as masons and belong to various chapters called lodges.) Fascinated and captivated by Van Arsdale’s stories, Wood searched for more information about Masonic work and found books that continued to wet his appetite for the mysterious.

     That fall, Wood carried this appetite for fraternity with him to Washington College. Once enrolled, he investigated the fraternities that existed on campus at the time: Beta Theta Pi, Phi Kappa Psi and Alpha Tau Omega. Not pleased, he simply decided that he would form his own secret organization.

     Wood somehow managed to procure a ritual from a small fraternity, Epsilon Alpha, which had faltered during the war, and with Will Scott’s assistance, used it to write a modest ritual that satisfied both their taste and impatience. Finally, on December 21, 1865, these two men met with Stanhope Scott and Walsh and bound their friendship by "mutual pledge of faith and loyalty," and formed Phi Kappa Chi fraternity. The name of their fraternity was probably chosen in parody of Phi Kappa Psi. Will Scott was chosen as Number I; Walsh, Number II; and Wood, Number III.

     The other fraternities looked scornfully upon the appearance of a new secret society on campus, and members of Phi Kappa Psi were especially perturbed at Wood’s use of the name Phi Kappa Chi, because it was so similar to their own. Consequently, Wood was asked by a Phi Kappa Psi member to change the name, to which he obliged. The organization remerged as the K.A. fraternity. At that time, the letters did not stand for Kappa Alpha. It is believed that Wood used the letters "K.A." to attract members and attention. (The popular old K.A. fraternity "Kuklos Adelphon," that was founded in 1812 and that had died during the war, was still commonly known.) By the end of the spring 1866 semester, the four founders had initiated seven additional members.

Transformation

     The new school year brought promise. Due to Lee’s association with the college, the enrollment more than doubled to nearly 400 students. The K.A.’s, who held many of their meetings at the Ann Smith Academy for girls, where the Scott brothers’ father was headmaster, initiated seven more men into their fold that fall. Among these was Samuel Zenas Ammen. Standing 5’6", Ammen was immaculate and precise in his manner. Will Scott, who began the tradition of bestowing nicknames, dubbed him "Lord."

     Before attending Washington College, Ammen had become a Master Mason; so to him, Wood’s modest ritual was "mere verbal pyrotechnics in florid sophomoric style with nothing to touch the imagination of initiates nor stir their fancy." Inspired by its possibilities, however, he urged the young fraternity to amend and enhance the ritual.

     In Wood’s room at Sunnyside, an estate on the edge of town, Ammen and Wood discussed possibilities for a new ritual, and it was agreed that Ammen should continue the work. In order to gather material, he read books, watched the chapter’s activities, listened to their ideals and beliefs and conferred with Wood and Will Scott late into the night on many occasions. Little by little, the old ritual was chiseled away, and the new one was constructed in its place. Nearly two decades later, Will Scott would write to Ammen, "The ritual was all so altered, changed and improved upon, mainly by you, that we can say it underwent a complete regeneration, or new birth." His development of the ritual, constitution, bylaws, grip and symbols and his enduring commitment, ultimately earned Ammen the title of Practical Founder of Kappa Alpha Order.

     Ammen later insisted, "The present ritual, in fact, was not made, it grew." However, the new ritual transformed the K.A. fraternity into Kappa Alpha Order, an order of Christian knights pledged to the highest ideals of character and achievement. Ammen and his contemporaries sought to preserve the masculine virtues of chivalry, respect for others, honor and reverence for God and woman. Thus, they emulated their college’s president – Robert E. Lee. Ammen would later recall, "We likened him to Agamemnon and we were his Achoi battling on the fields of Troy."

     Despite the milestone of establishing its refined identity on campus, the brothers of Kappa Alpha stood at a crossroads. The chapter had recently expelled five members for violations of their obligations and Will Scott was preparing to leave his position as Number I. The brothers had to decide whether or not to keep up the fight. One moonlit night in May 1867, Ammen and a recent initiate, Jo Lane Stern, took a walk to discuss the future of their young fraternity. As they sat on the steps of Whites General Store, on the corner of Lexington’s Main and Nelson Streets, they contemplated the viability of Kappa Alpha Order and whether or not the chapter could survive. "Shall we let the lodge die," they asked. Ammen later recalled, "The outcome was a decision to keep up the fight, and from that time on our prospects improved."

Early Growth

     With the fortitude to forge ahead, the chapter began the 1867-1868 school year with Ammen as the new Number I. They began looking beyond Washington College to establish KA’s second chapter; their first prospect was naturally the school’s neighbor, VMI An invitation for membership was extended to John Eliphalet Hollingsworth, a VMI cadet, and by Spring 1868, three more cadets were initiated. Subsequently, Beta chapter was formed March 8, 1868.

     Transfers from Washington College established chapters at the University of Georgia (Gamma) in 1868 and at Wofford College (Delta) in Spartanburg, S.C., in 1869. Epsilon was also established in 1869 at Emory University in Atlanta by members of Gamma. One account of early expansion efforts tells of Stern’s claim that Lee permitted him to miss class and travel to Ashland, Va. in 1869 to found Zeta at Randolph-Macon College. Although Lee was known for only permitting absences because of illness, legend has it that he approved Stern’s journey to Randolph-Macon and then again to Richmond College in 1870.

     Stern stated that he arrived in Richmond amid little enthusiasm for fraternities, but that he brought with him a letter of introduction from Lee to J.L.M. Curry, an influential law professor, that explained his mission. Allegedly, Curry called a faculty meeting and announced, "If General Lee will let a man come away to establish a chapter, I vote for it. If he thinks a fraternity is a good thing, I think so too" hence, Eta was born. Theta (prime) was also established in 1870 at Atlanta’s Oglethorpe University by members of Gamma and Epsilon chapters. By the close of 1870, five years after KA’s founding, the Order’s ranks had grown to eight chapters.

Organization

     In 1870, Ammen’s efforts finally achieved the permanence of ink in Kappa Alpha’s first publication. A copy of the forty-six page booklet, which contained the Order’s constitution, ritual and bylaws, was sent to each chapter. Called the "Green Book," because of its green paper cover, the publication established the "General Council." The first Convention was held that same year in Richmond, Va., where Ammen presided in dual capacity as Number I of Alpha chapter and as Knight Commander (our national president).

     Initially, the chapters that were assembled at the General Council had limited power and Alpha retained control of the fraternity. However, by 1873, with the close of Alpha, sovereignty had been relinquished to the General Council or Convention, as it was now known. Since then, Convention has been held in odd-numbered years, with Special Conventions called from time to time in order to address extraordinary matters.

     With organization, KA continued to grow. Over the next twenty-five years, the Order expanded deeper into the South, to the North (in Baltimore and Philadelphia) and in 1895, to the West Coast with chapters at the University of California-Berkeley and Stanford University. By the turn of the century, the number of active chapters had increased to 44.

     As the Order grew older, our chapters began graduating more and more men that longed to continue their KA association after college. These men began to search out fellow brothers in their local areas and, before long, alumni chapters were springing-up all over the country.

     The rapid growth of the Order necessitated a reorganization of our chapters, and in 1891, the Convention established guidelines for organizing alumni chapters. The main restriction placed on alumni chapters was that they could not initiate new members.

     In 1911, the province system was created to establish regional management for the growing national fraternity. A province is a specific region of the country that contains active and alumni chapters. The United States is currently divided into 22 provinces, 20 of which are active (meaning there are active chapters within its boundaries). Each province is named for a Founder, Former Knight Commander or National Officer. Turn to page 143 in the appendix for a listing of the Order’s provinces. The province commander, an alumnus who is elected annually to serve as such, is directly responsible for the chapters in his province. A province commander may enlist the aid of other alumni (deputy province commanders) to assist him in carrying out his duties.

     The province commander is elected at annual meetings called province councils. Province councils were first convened in the fall of 1912 and today, they serve several functions. Province councils exist for brothers to discuss the business of the Order and of the province and to elect province level officers. However, the most important aspect of province councils are the educational sessions.

     By 1933, KA’s growth necessitated a restructuring of the Order’s national government. There were 72 undergraduate chapters and the national hierarchy was laden with outdated positions. Delegates to the 38th Convention in 1935 adopted a new constitution and governmental structure consisting of the Knight Commander and Executive Council (our board of directors).

     As a part of the reorganization, the first National Administrative Office was opened in New Orleans, La. in 1934. After brief stints in New Orleans, Atlanta, Ga. and Louisville, Ky., the Order’s National Office returned to Atlanta in 1954. For the next 32 years, the National Office would remain there until the fulfillment of KA’s long-time dream of owning our own National Headquarters would come to fruition.

     In 1986, the National Office returned the Order to its roots by moving home to Lexington, Va. Although the move was partly a nostalgic one, it also marked a progressive change for Kappa Alpha as it became fully computerized for the first time in its existence. The first office in Lexington was operated out of temporary space until a suitable structure could be purchased.

     In 1990 the Order purchased the old Rockbridge County Jail, which had been vacant for two years, and began the massive task of transforming it into a beautiful, modern functioning office. After two years of pain-staking restoration, the office moved into the federal-style building, located on the courthouse square in Lexington’s historic downtown district, in April 1992. For the first time in Kappa Alpha’s long and distinguished history, a KA flag flew over a permanent national headquarters.

 Responsibility of Brotherhood

     You have selected Kappa Alpha Order as your fraternal organization. Selection however, is a double-sided process. The members of your chapter also selected you to join their chapter and our brotherhood.

     Undoubtedly, you have great expectations of your involvement in Kappa Alpha. You expect KA to be a source of good times, educational experiences and life-long friendships. You also expect Kappa Alpha to help you realize your goals in college and beyond. You want positive social opportunities that will be enhanced through close friends and good fellowship and you desire your time with KA to be rewarding and worthwhile. Overall, you expect Kappa Alpha Order to be a great fraternity. Through a stimulating environment, you can expect to advance as a student, as a leader and as a member of society. This is possible through the unique structure and ideals of KA and the support of your brothers. But, always remember, an organization is only as great as its members.

     Just as selection is double-faceted, so too are the expectations. You have expectations of KA, and KA has expectations of you. The growth that the Order fosters within its members requires one to follow our standards and adhere to our ideals. You would not have been selected for membership if the active brothers of your chapter had not believed you already possessed worthwhile traits.

Kappa Alpha Ideals

Definition of a Gentleman

     The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.

     The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly--the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light

     The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others.

-Robert Edward Lee

Sir You are KA

     Sir, you are a Kappa Alpha. You are not just another fraternity man. You are a knight of the most unique organization among Greek letter societies. You have been made familiar with traditions and values which emanated--not by accident, but by device--from the most noble qualities of the Knights of Old. Into the heritage you have been presented are incorporated the highest ideals of fidelity to God and esteem of woman. You are a KA. You can never be anything else and cannot do less than aspire to excellence. You cannot be petty, cowardly, unfair, unfaithful; you are a KA.

The Varlet of the Kappa Alpha Order
Copyright 2003, Kappa Alpha Order