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 Reilly 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, 1849
Of ever honored memory.