Jacob Broughton Nelson

Jacob Broughton Nelson (b 1898) has been proclaimed the titular founder of Phi Kappa National Fraternity.

What is Known About Him

Jacob Broughton Nelson was born in 1898 in Brundidge, Alabama. From an early age Nelson lived with his aunt and uncle at 234 South Three Notch Street in Troy, Alabama. Nelson's uncle was a circuit minister for the Methodist Church.In the years 1914-1916 Nelson attended the Southern University Preparatory School in Greensboro, Alabama. There, he was a member of the Glee Club and the Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa National Fraternity. He has been described as being an ambitious and popular young fellow who was about 5'6" tall with brown hair, a medium build, and who wore round, wire-rimmed spectacles. After his tenure at Southern, Nelson moved back to Troy, where he founded the Upsilon Chapter of Phi Kappa. Over the next few years, he oversaw the chartering of Phi Kappa chapters at the Emory University Academy in Oxford, Georgia (Gamma Beta) and at the Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Mississippi (Mu Theta).

Nelson's Fate

One historian has stated that Nelson died of Tuberculosis in Colorado, but the Bureau of Statistics in Colorado has no record of this. Some rumors claim that Nelson simply moved to Texas, but this is also unverified. Regardless of whether he died or disappeared, there was no one in Troy or any Phi Kappa chapter who remembers seeing Nelson after 1920.