Beta Theta Pi was founded in 1839 at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. It was the sixth fraternity in order of founding and the first to originate west of the Allegheny Mountains. Epsilon Chapter was established at Centre College in 1848. Because of the Civil War, the chapter was inactive from 1862 to 1871 but revitalized itself in the 1870s. During this period it absorbed the local chapter of Alpha Chi Phi, a fraternity that had begun at Centre in 1868. Prominent members of Epsilon Chapter have included Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Marshall Harlan, Kentucky Governors John Y. Brown and Thomas T. Crittenden, Senator John Sherman Cooper, Ormond Beatty, President of Centre from 1868 to 1888, William C. Young, President of Centre from 1888 to 1896, “Bo” McMillan, and E. A. Diddle.