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Penn History

These histories were researched and written by Benjamin Foster Carlson

Penn’s chapter was mentioned as early as the 1877 edition of The Record, but Penn’s Nu chapter was established in 1883 and first appeared on its own page in The Record of that year. The fraternity was America’s first social fraternity, founded in 1824 at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University). It did not appear in The Record of 1886 or in subsequent years; there was no chapter of Chi Phi active in Philadelphia in 1898 or in later years.