St. Anthony Hall

St. Anthony Hall or the Fraternity of Delta Psi is an American fraternity and literary society. Its first chapter was founded at Columbia University on , the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great. The fraternity is a non–religious, nonsectarian organization. In 1879, William Raimond Baird's American College Fraternities characterized the fraternity as having "the reputation of being the most secret of all the college societies." A modern writer says the fraternity is "a cross between Skull and Bones and a Princeton eating club, with a large heaping of Society and more than a dash of Animal House." Nearly all chapters of St. Anthony Hall are coed. References to St. Anthony Hall have appeared in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, John O'Hara, and Tom Wolfe. History According to Baird's, the Alpha chapter of the Fraternity of Delta Psi was founded at Columbia University in by John Hone Anthon, Sam. F. Barger, Charles Arms Budd, and William Myn Van Wagener. In The Review magazine, the fraternity says Anthon was a founder and the first leader of the fraternity. (He would later serve as grand master, i.e. president, of Freemasons in New York, for the term 1870-71.) Another source says Delta Psi was started by the fifteen-year-old Edward Forbes Travis who came to Columbia University from England "with an odd fascination for St. Anthony the Great, the gnarled fourth-century mystic." In this scenario, Travis shared "certain rituals" with a Charles Arms Budd on the Saint's feast day, creating "a sacred bond that was soon extended to others." According to its national website, Delta Psi was founded on the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great as a "fraternity dedicated to the love of education and the well-being of its members." The fraternity developed "a literary flavor: members would spend hours reading essays to one another for general critique or amusement." By 1853, it was holding an Annual Literary Festival and Dinner. It also held evenings featuring orators and poets, often publishing the poems or speeches.