Beta Theta Pi's 164 year history started with eight men at the Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Those eight founders' vision remain constant at the Beta Pi chapter, as well as at Beta chapters across the continent. For the 200,000 some initiated members, we all look to the founders as the guiding light of the Fraternity whose vision inspired thousands to join a brotherhood that has touched the lives of millions.

"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 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

"Of ever honored memory"