Beta Theta Pi Alumni Club ctificate handsigned by John Reily Knox - Ohio.
John Reily Knox (May 20, 1820–February 7, 1898) was an American attorney who was the principal founder of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity at Miami University in 1839.
Knox was born on May 20, 1820, on a farm between Millville, Ohio, and Venice, Ohio, and graduated from Miami University "first rank in his class" and president of the Union Literary Society. In Beta Theta Pi, he is referred to as "Pater" in acknowledgment of his role in the origin and design of the fraternity.
Knox taught school in Mississippi, 1841–42, and was admitted to the bar and practiced at Greenville, Ohio, 1843–52; Dayton, Ohio, 1852–56; and Greenville again 1856–98. He was a partner in the Greenville-based law firm of Knox, Martz, and Rupe. A Whig until the formation of the Republican Party, he was an Ohio Presidential Elector in 1860 and cast his vote for Abraham Lincoln. Knox was the president of Greenville Law Library, president of Darke County, Ohio Bar Association, vestryman of St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church, and a member of the Miami University Board of Trustees, 1869–98.
Knox was married on November 27, 1845, to Isabel S. Briggs. They had four children.
Knox died on February 7, 1898, in Darke County, Ohio. He is buried in Greenville Cemetery, Greenville, Ohio.
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Beta Theta Pi, commonly known on campuses across North America simply as Beta, was founded on August 8, 1839, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. One of the oldest fraternities in existence, it was founded by students who had previously been members of the Erodelphian and Union Literary Societies but had greater aspirations for their own organization. Founder John Reily Knox, Miami 1839, noted at the time:
“There was an interest about the actions of men who bound themselves together by vows which were never broken and who pursued the great objects of their association with an energy that never tired, with a zeal which knew not-self, and with a devotedness that never counted gold.”
When Beta Theta Pi held its first meeting in the old college building known as “Old Main” (today’s Harrison Hall), eight founders were present to establish an order they believed would embrace the good of their fraternal peers without any of their objectionable features:
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
History from Wikipedia and RM Smythe.
