Aztec Club of 1847
It is a male-only hereditary organization with membership of those who can trace a direct ancestral connection "based on male descent"[1] to those initially eligible or have a "collateral relationship to fourth cousin".
[10] Membership was extended to all officers who had served in the campaign from Vera Cruz on, and carried much prestige not only in Mexico but in the United States.
[12][13] The site chosen for its clubhouse was the former home of José María Bocanegra, the Mexican minister to the United States,[4] an 18th-century palace initially built for the Viceroy of New Spain, just off the Plaza de la Constitución, the Zócalo of the conquered city.
[16][17] Winfield Scott wanted to reward his officers, so, using military funds, he hired locals to spruce up the old building turning it into the Aztec Club.
The ranks of the organization swelled quickly, including William T. Sherman, George G. Meade, and Kentuckian Simon Bolivar Buckner.
.The Club was organized for the purpose of forming a resort for officers, as a promoter of good fellowship, and of furnishing a home where they could pass their leisure hours in social intercourse, and where more palatable and healthful viands could be procured at a reduced price than at the best Fandas of the city."
The building was located on one of the streets leading out of the Calle Plateros, but two blocks from the Grand Plaza, a most convenient situation, and not far from the headquarters of General Scott, commander-in-chief.
It had more fine shops than any other in Mexico; hence it was the popular promenade and driving street and the resort of the fashionable young men, who there had the opportunity of meeting their fair friends.
John Bankhead Magruder frequently acting as master of ceremonies before the officer corps left Mexico City during the summer of 1848.
[22] By March, the Aztec Club's constitution had been printed, along with a list of the original members, all officers serving in Regular or Volunteer units of the U.S. Army or U.S.
Two of its members were candidates for Vice President of the United States (John A. Logan and Simon Bolivar Buckner), and a number of them became Congressmen and high-ranking military and civil officers.
During the mid-1850s, reunions with fellow officers were held in various places, but due to members being widely dispersed in military service, the club did not meet as a whole.
Since the club's original constitution seemed inadequate to the needs of such an association, Quitman called a meeting at Delmonico's in New York City, New York, to be held on September 14, 1855, the eighth anniversary of the club's dedication, to form a new "Montezuma Society" designed for "...renewing and cultivating those ties of fellowship and sympathy, which are naturally so prone to exist between men who have served together in War.
Robert Patterson, original member and last president of the Montezuma Society, was given the chair by motion, with Peter V. Hagner as treasurer and George Sykes to serve as acting secretary.
[40] The Aztec Club evolved from a society of military comrades to an organization which first included sons of eligible but deceased officers, and eventually (after his death) became an association of lineal descendants.
[44] Commemorating its sesquicentennial, on the morning of October 7, 1997, members of the Aztec Club assembled in Mexico City to embark on a ten-day trip following in near reverse the path that took Winfield Scott and his armies two years to travail.
[45] The year prior, when Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo learned of the trip he issued an official invitation to the Aztec Club to visit Chapultepec and committed to attend a formal banquet with the members.
