Flat Hat Club

The Flat Hat Club (as it was known outside its membership) or F.H.C. Society was the first of the collegiate secret societies or fraternities founded in the present United States, at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, on November 11, 1750.

History

The initials of the F.H.C. Society stand for a Latin phrase, likely "Fraternitas, Humanitas, et Cognitio" or "Fraternitas Humanitas Cognitioque" (two renderings of "brotherhood, humaneness, and knowledge").Fact|date=July 2008 As members of the first American collegiate fraternity in the modern sense, the "brothers" of the F.H.C. devised and employed a secret handshake, wore a silver membership medal, issued certificates of membership, and met regularly for discussion and fellowship.Fact|date=July 2008 The Society became publicly known as the "Flat Hat Club" in probable allusion to the mortarboard caps then commonly worn by all students at the College (now worn at graduation by students at most American universities).

William & Mary alumnus and third U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson, is perhaps the most famous member of the Flat Hat Club. [http://www.dogstreetjournal.com/story/2049 Shhh! The Secret Side to the College’s Lesser Known Societies - The DoG Street Journal ] ] Other notable members of the original Society included Col. James Innes, St. George Tucker, and George Wythe. ["F.H.C. Society," [http://scrc.swem.wm.edu/controlcard.php?id=6514 University Archives Subject File Collection] , Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William and Mary] Jefferson noted that "When I was a student of Wm. & Mary college of this state, there existed a society called the F.H.C. society, confined to the number of six students only, of which I was a member, but it had no useful object, nor do I know whether it now exists." cite book |author = Hastings, William T. |year = 1965 |title = "Phi Beta Kappa as a Secret Society with its Relations to Freemasonry and Antimasonry Some Supplementary Documents" |location = Richmond, Virginia |publisher = United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa |pages = 38-39]

A second Latin-letter fraternity, the P.D.A. Society (publicly known as "Please Don't Ask"), was founded at William and Mary in March, 1773, in imitation of the F.H.C. Society. John Heath, a student at William and Mary who in 1776 sought but was refused admission to the P.D.A., later established the first Greek-letter fraternity, the Phi Beta Kappa Society. [Jane Carson, "James Innes and His Brothers of the F.H.C."; Charlottesville, Virginia: The University Press of Virginia, 1965.]

The student members of the F.H.C. suspended the activities of the Society in 1781, probably as a result of the suspension of academic exercises at the university (which the College of William and Mary had become in 1779) as the contending armies of the American Revolution approached Williamsburg during the Yorktown campaign. The name of the Society was revived in the twentieth century by application to a select group of twelve undergraduate men and several professors which had been founded in 1916 as the Spotswood Club (it thus differed markedly from the original Society, a fraternity of six undergraduate men with alumnus members "in urbe"). The Society again suspended its activities in 1943 as the number of men enrolled at the College steeply declined because of American involvement in World War II.

The modern F.H.C. Society was revived in May, 1972.cite web |url=http://scrc.swem.wm.edu/controlcard.php?id=6514 |title=University Archives Subject File Collection, 1693-(ongoing) |work=Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William and Mary |accessdate=2008-06-17] It remains an all-male fraternity, with most of its activities comparatively secret within the university.

"The Flat Hat", the twice-weekly student newspaper of The College of William and Mary, took its name from the public nickname of the Society.

Notable Alumni

The F.H.C. Society numbered among its members many notable Virginians of the late colonial, Revolutionary, and early federal periods. Perhaps the most famous was Thomas Jefferson, who late in life wrote an enquiring member of Phi Beta Kappa that the F.H.C. had "served no useful object" , even though his friends in the society had remained confidantes for life. Other notable members of the original Society included Col. James Innes, St. George Tucker, and George Wythe.

References

Bibliography

*

ee also

*Collegiate secret societies in North America

External links

* [http://swem.wm.edu/images/jefferson/jefferson-short/lot2-folder7/jef18190614/jef1819061401.pngThomas Jefferson's letter] to Thomas McAuley regarding the F.H.C. Society, June 14, 1819.
* [http://flathat.wm.edu/2005-09-30/history.php Flat Hat History from The Flat Hat, William and Mary's student newspaper]