Beta Theta Pi

At nine o'clock on the evening of the eighth day of the eighth month of the year 1839, eight earnest young men, all students at Miami University, held the first meeting of Beta Theta Pi in the Hall of the Union Literary Society, an upper room in the old college building (known as "Old Main.") The eight founders in the order in which their names appear in the minutes were: John Reily Knox, 1839 Samuel Taylor Marshall, 1840 David Linton, 1839 James George Smith, 1840 Charles Henry Hardin, 1841 John Holt Duncan, 1840 Michael Clarkson Ryan, 1839 Thomas Boston Gordon, 1840 "of ever honored memory"