E Clampus Vitus
The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus (ECV) is a fraternal organization dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of the Western United States, especially the history of the Mother Lode and gold mining regions of the area.
There are chapters in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Wyoming.
The organization's name is in Dog Latin, and has no known meaning; even the spelling is disputed, sometimes appearing as "Clampus," "Clampsus," or "Clampsis."
The motto of the Order, Credo quia absurdum, generally interpreted as meaning "I believe it because it is absurd;"[1] is a Latin phrase popularly misattributed to Tertullian.
Members claim that the organization was brought from the Qing Dynasty in China to the United States in 1845 in Lewisport, Virginia, now West Union, West Virginia, when inn and stable owner Ephraim Bee was given a commission from the Emperor of China to "extend the work and influence of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus."
At the age of 60, Bee was a Captain of the Doddridge County Militia, which protected the area from roving Confederate forces, horse thieves and outlaws.
The Militia also had a part in the Underground Railroad in Doddridge County, hiding escaping slaves in hidden cellars of homes and also in Jaco Cave.
There were E Clampus Vitus chapters in Bedford, Pennsylvania; Metropolis, Illinois; Bowling Green, Missouri; and Dahlonega, Georgia.
(It has been rumored that ECV brethren within the U.S. Army even attempted to bring the order as far south as Mexico City following the Mexican–American War, as a gesture of brotherhood and reconciliation, but all record has vanished of the well-intentioned Chapultepec chapter.)
A move to greater seriousness was shown during the Civil War, when the Order changed its parade day from the first Sunday after the snows to the Fourth of July.
Ticket sales at the Marysville Theater were also weak, leaving manager Douglas short of funds and the Company's future in doubt.
[7] When the local LeBroke lodge of ECV became aware of his predicament, Lord Douglas was proffered and accepted an opportunity to join the Order.
Mark Twain was a member, and it was while attending an ECV meeting that he heard the story which he wrote as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.
[citation needed] The original E Clampus Vitus faded in some regions after the Civil War, while in other areas it thrived until 1918.
A "second era" version of the organization was formed in 1930 by San Franciscan attorney and cartographic historian Carl Irving Wheat.
[3] The drinking and revelry aspects were not entirely abandoned however, with one man accidentally shot dead during a drunken party in Columbia in 1967.
They were contacted by Adam Lee Moore, one of the surviving leaders of the original ECV, who passed on all that he could remember of the organization's rites and legends.
The so-called Drake's Plate of Brass was accepted as authentic for forty years, yet was in actuality a hoax initiated by Dane that got out of control.
ECV also claims Ulysses S. Grant, Lord Sholto Douglas,[A] J. Pierpont Morgan, Horace Greeley, and Horatio Alger as members, but claims have also been made to Adam (the first "Clampatriarch"), Solomon, Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar, Henry VIII of England, Sir Francis Drake, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Ronald Reagan, and His Imperial Majesty Joshua A. Norton, "Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico".
At the close of the War with Mexico, Lt. William Tecumseh Sherman was Adjutant to Col. Richard Barnes Mason at the time of the gold discovery at Sutter's Mill.
