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Carter Ashton Jenkens, the 18-year-old son of a minister, had been a student at Rutgers University, New Jersey, where he joined Chi Phi Fraternity. When he transferred to Richmond College in the Fall of 1900, he sought companions to take the place of the Chi Phi brothers he had left behind. He found five men who had already been drawn into a bond of friendship and urged them to join him in applying for a charter of Chi Phi at Richmond College. The request for a charter was forwarded to Chi Phi only to meet with refusal. Chi Phi felt that Richmond College was too small for the establishment of a Chi Phi chapter.
Wanting to maintain their fellowship, Carter Ashton Jenkens, Benjamin Gaw, William Carter, William Wallace, Thomas Wright, and William Phillips decided to form their own local fraternity.
The six original members found six others also searching for a campus fellowship neither the college campus nor the existing fraternity system could offer. The six new members were Lucian Cox, Richard Owens, Edgar Allen, Robert McFarland, Franklin Kerfoot, and Thomas McCaul.
The 12 met in October, 1901, in Gaw and Wallace's room on the third floor of Ryland Hall. They discussed the organization of a fraternity they would call "Sigma Phi." The exact date of this meeting is not known. However, the meeting was probably held before the middle of the month, because the 12 Founders are named as members on November 1, 1901, in the first printed roster of the Fraternity. Jenkens is listed as the first member.
A committee of Jenkens, Gaw, and Phillips was appointed to discuss plans for recognition with the faculty at the college. These men met with a faculty committee, where they were requested to present their case. The faculty committee requested that the new group explain:
- The need for a new fraternity since chapters of five national fraternities were on the campus and the enrollment at Richmond College was less than 300.
- The wisdom of this attempt to organize a new fraternity, with 12 members, seven of whom were seniors.
- The right to name the new fraternity Sigma Phi, the name of an already established national fraternity.
Jenkens, Gaw, and Phillips answered:
"This fraternity will be different, it will be based on the love of God and the principle of peace through brotherhood. The number of members will be increased from the undergraduate classes. We will change the name to Sigma Phi Epsilon."
Though the discussion lasted some time, permission was granted for the organization of the new fraternity to proceed. Immediately at the close of the meeting with the faculty committee, the fraternity committee rushed to Jenkens' room to borrow William Hugh Carter's Greek-English Lexicon. They conceived themselves that Epsilon had a desirable meaning, and then telegraohed jeweler Eaton in Goldsboro, NC, to add an E at the point of each of the 12 badges. Eight other students were invited to join SigEp. The original badges were of yellow gold, with alternation rubies and garnets around the edge of the heart, with the Greek letter and the skull and crossbones.
Founder Lucian Cox reflected on the "brotherhood that had inspired him and his brothers" when he wrote in the Sigma Phi Epsilon Journal, Vol. 1 No. 1, March, 1904:
"As a member of an ideal fraternity, the resources of every member of that body are my resources, the product of their lives is my daily life. The fraternity is a common storehouse for experience, moral rectitude, and spirituality; the larger and purer the contribution of the individual, the greater the resources of each member."
Five men were invited to join before Christmas and became members in January, 1902. Three more of the first group of 21 joined February 1, 1902.
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