Jordan was twenty years old when he became one of the founding members of the Sigma Chi fraternity in 1855 at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

An important part of his life's journey was set early on when he moved to Ohio with his family and met Ben Runkle, who later described Jordan as a "playmate of my boyhood, a schoolmate, and a friend for the long and strenuous years of manhood... with boundless energy, lofty ambitions, gifted with untiring perseverance and the ability that made success a certainty."

Jordan and Runkle, two fellow Freemasons, landed at Miami University together for college, and fittingly became fraternity brothers, first as Dekes, then as founders of the new fraternity, Sigma Phi, which later became known as Sigma Chi.

Jordan displayed his goal-oriented nature throughout his collegiate career, and it was no surprise that he went straight to law school and practiced as an attorney until he was elected in 1882 to the U.S. Congress.

The newspapers of the day devoted entire pages, with prominent headlines and drawings, to the occurrence.