The Unbelievable History of the Ancient and Honorable E Clampus Vitus. The new E Clampus Vitus order continues on to this day. If our mayor was a Clamper, it was Tommys duty to dust off the old red and black and honor the tradition. Chairman Moe of the Salt of the Scum of the Earth models an upright yet casual ECV look of red and black. Once enlightened,a brother is a brother for life. Vice Noble Grand Humbug, Lucinda Jane Saunders Chapter 1881. . What, exactly, does E Clampus Vitus mean? In fact the seeds for the elaborate lore that would later spring up around the order were planted by Ephraim himself, for he said he had learned the secrets of the order from Caleb Cushing, a Massachusetts statesman who had visited China and brought back the mysteries of this Confucian brotherhood that was widespread in the East. Some theologians trace the society back to Moses, who is claimed to be an early Noble Grand Humbug or Clampatriarch, for one of the hypothesized source documents of the Torah, called the Elohist, is more commonly referred to as E, corresponding to the beginning of the orders name. They are responsible for building the historical monuments you see all over the Western United States. Free shipping for many products! by. Seemed to have buckets of fun when I was young, and, hope they still are! ECV titles reflected the tongue-in-cheek nature of the organization. When he passed away in august 2013 unexpectedly the clamper helped his wife and kids. I've known about the ECV (E Clampus Vitus) organization for 45-50 years, but was recently invited to, and did join them last May. Johnnys Bar & Grill About 30 miles north, in the town of Quincy, is the Plumas Club, with a neon ECV sign in the window. 2020. Once initiated, each candidate was given the official title of Chairman of the Most Important Committee. Clampers also marched in parades, with a billy goat for their mascot and a banner consisting of a womans hoop skirt and the motto, This is the flag we fight under.. Long before Church of the Subgenius, there existed a whimsical secret society called E Clampus Vitus (aka the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus, ECV, or simply "the Clampers"). It was truly a family affair. and if I imbibe and can't hold it like a man, then may I always be able to "Pass it on to the next Brother", may I never A 20th century discovery in the Vatican Library tells the tale in the form of a letter by one Heliodoricus, himself a Vituscan. 1996-2023, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates, E Clampus Vitus: Anthology Of New Dispensation Lore, A Nice Piece of Brass: E Clampus Vitus Plaques, 2013-2017, S.E.A.R.C.H. When its quiet at the museum, he spends the afternoons reading up on local history. P.O. I'm starting to build a library of Clamper items, and this one book combines six stories written about / by Clampers. Pride in Californias history rescued E Clampus Vitus from oblivion, however. . Wm Bull Meek - Wm Morris Stewart Chapter No. Please note: This voyage was undertaken by one of low birth, the son of a servant woman who cleaned the privy chambers of the Empress. Contains spam, fake content or potential malware. It is now thought that the Fuller ceremony was part of an effort for the perpetrators to tip off the plate's finders as to its true origins. ECV flourished, in part, as the result of the miners' reaction to the "established" organizations such as the Masons and Odd Fellows. I hope you enjoy i,t and if youd like to read itautographed copies are available at Johnnys, I couldnt helpshameless the plug. There were E Clampus Vitus chapters in Bedford, Pennsylvania; Metropolis, Illinois; Bowling Green, Missouri; and Dahlonega, Georgia. 10, P.O. To the Noble Grand Recorder, Officers and Greybeards of Jim Savage Chapter ECV 1852: I, _____, hereby petition humbly for membership into the most Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus. I have felt like a helping hand all my life. It is said that before his unfortunate end, St. Vitus was in the process of writing the great history of E Clampus Vitus, but had only managed to write out one line. According to the story, Hee Lis vessel was blown out to sea by a storm, and by some cosmic mischance, a cockroach-like beetle had gotten into his only compass, misaligning the needle and dying inside, out of sight. Likes: 0. My cousin was a clamper. Take the words apart and you get this: Eclampsus, if you look at old medical dictionaries, was the way they spelled eclampsia which is milk fever. Life was good as prominent business owners in a small town. The last of the Dumbellican friars are said to have encountered a band of Native Americans calling themselves Clampas in Arizona. The first time the men informed us that they would be out of town for the weekend, some of the women were bothered that their husbands wanted to leave them for two days. Only two others survived the journey, Stomachus, and Bellicosus, whereupon they gained an audience with Chinese emperor Hee Sing Li. Bee claimed to have received his commission from Caleb Cushing, the American Commissioner to China. The heart of the rally this year will take place at the . The fart machine with a remote my husband sneaked into Seth and Jeannies adjoining room made for another hour of entertainment. After many years of being dormant, it was revived in the early 1930's, and has chapters throughout the West. And this may be even closer to the E Clampus Vitus of the Gold Rush Miners. 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. It appears to have begun in West Virginia, dreamed up by a blacksmith and tavern keeper named Ephraim Bee sometime during the early 1850s. permission. A bar owner named Ephriam Bee established the ECV in Lewisport, West Virginia, claiming to have received an ECV charter from the Emperor of China. I am a future puke as we speak. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for CA FRATERNAL 2 1/4" Button~"E. CLAMPUS VITUS"~Jim Savage Widders Nite 1976~ at the best online prices at eBay! It turns. Back in the day, if a miner got killed and left behind a wife and children, Clampers made sure they were well cared for, he said. One among these women, Lo-Hung-Whangs own concubine, Hop Mee, proved to be stronger and more clever than the men anticipated, though. A lot of people get confused and think were a bunch of drunkards, said the resident of Quincy, a small mining town. Official Web Site of Joaquin Murrieta Chapter 13 E Clampus Vitus. Of course, it may have been a combination of both. The fraternity is not sure if it is a "historical drinking society" or a "drinking historical society." In addition to his crew, he brought three hundred fertile slave girls, with the intention of peopling Gumshaniana with their descendants. He (Sholto) agreed, and tonight the opera-house was packed."[8]. Or you could call Terry at 831-206-1174. Happy I did. Ephraim Bees E Clampus Vitus grew a bit in West Virginia and elsewhere, but it faded away during his lifetime. God bless, Cat, You will need a sponsor. Fill out the form below. Mural depicting Califia, fictional Amazonian queen for whome California was named, via Wikimedia Commons. Ephraim Bee, an early leader of the group, was styled Grand Gyascutis and later the Grand Lama. [9] A 20th century chapter of the ECV was named for Lord Sholto Douglas in honor of this event. Their form of the phrase was the Latin Ecce Lampas Vitae, meaning Behold, the Light of Life, and how this phrase became corrupted is truly a remarkable tale. E Clampus Vitus was one of several brotherhoods that swept as many as 40 percent of American men into their fold during the "golden age of fraternalism" in the late nineteenth and early. John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, "Promoting Offbeat History Between the Drinks", "The Nevada journal. Allen instructing my grandson Joseph on where he could help out. The church likely came to this conclusion based on the behavior of his followers, the Dumbellican Brotherhood, who received the nickname the Frollicking Friars due to their licentious behavior. For two days we had more fun than the law should allow, and did everything from playing darts to holding a butt contest for the band members who played for us on Saturday night. Your email address will not be published. Jan 22nd 1896) and promised a big house. Members call themselves "Clampers." Historian Lois Rather suggests that the order originally came from the Southern states before being carried to California during the Gold Rush. Thereafter, the miners gladly patronized these newcomers to their town, so it was essentially an initiation into the community. In fact, as the legend goes, not much was known about their origins because they always got drunk at their meetings and the next day, nobody could remember exactly what transpired. The group once paid tribute to the town of Prattville, whose original buildings are submerged beneath Lake Almanor. On a recent Sunday, Gene Chainsaw Koen, an appliance repairman with a bushy white goatee, kept watch over the collections. Eventually, upon making landfall at what is modern day Monterey and finding the dead bug in his compass, Hee Li, himself a dedicated Clamper, declared the new land Gumshaniana, or Gum Shan, and set about instructing its native inhabitants in the traditions of E Clampus Vitus. By this reckoning, the word Clampus derives from the Greek kleptos, to steal, because after receiving the knowledge by eating of the tree in the Garden of Eden, Adam smuggled out the secrets of the order so that he could pass them down to all mankind. But there is no evidence that the rough and tough miners of 19th-century California touted any such colorful beliefs about the origins of their little club. It is the only party that we ladies are invited to attend. This fraternal organization, reborn in the 1930s, today boasts that their members number in the tens of thousands in more than 40 chapters scattered across the Western United States, but by far their numbers are highest in my home state of California, where much of the orders history takes place. The timeline doesnt seem to jibe, though, for how could Zumwalt have brought E Clampus Vitus to California in 1849 and established the first chapter here in Calaveras County in 1851 if Ephraim Bee was only just forming the first chapter in West Virginia in 1853? However, one can express his desire to join. The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus the fraternal organization dedicated to the study St. VItus is known to have exorcised a demon from Emperor Diocletians son, or as the more scientific might suggest today, somehow cured the boy of some neurological or psychological condition. Mr. The Sons of Malta, a fraternal society given to pranks and parody initiation rites, has been cited as an influence, even though the Sons of Malta do not seem to have existed until 1854 (though ECV may have inspired the Sons of Malta, as there were many disappointed by the California gold rush who returned East). 7-11. Michael was an instrumental and vital player during the startup phase and transitioned nicely into the corporate environment after the acquisition. Upon finally landing at Gum Shan, somewhere near modern day Mendocino, Hop Mee decided that she would be the empress of this new land, and it is said that she is the true Amazonian warrior woman whose legend inspired the fictional character Calafia, after whom California is named. Copyright 2022 - South Pass Chapter #1867 All Rights Reserved |/\_/\| Required fields are marked *, Notify me of follow-up comments via e-mail. Aint a bit of anthracite or bitumen up on The Comstock, but thousands of Clampers, widders, & no-accounts have passed through these environs My son Allen Tyson is on Facebook and may be able to lead you in the right direction. It was revived in 1932 by professional and successful businessmen, prominent . For this, we must delve into the hard-to-find documents published by the first members of the Chapter Redivivus, who revived the order and learned its lore from an old man who was around when it was still being practiced in the 19th century. Well, to be fair, it does appear that Gold Rush miners had a fraternal organization called E Clampus Vitus, and it is true that Carl Wheat revived it in the 1930s, but all of the lore I just shared with you was fiction playfully concocted by the New Dispensation under the Chapter Redivivus. Inside, the officers the Noble Grand Humbug, the Royal Gyascutis, the Clamps Petrix, the Clamps Matrix, the Grand Imperturbable Hangman, and many others (as all Clampers are, by definition, officers) presided over meetings well lubricated with beer and cheap whiskey. The Clampers' Book of Balladry or Hewgagiana, Credo Quia Absurdum: Being a Compilation of Historic Documents & Trivia Pertinent to a Full Understanding of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus, The Story Of E Clampus Vitus (Then and Now 1852-1966), The enigmatical book of Vitus, in which is included the marvelous histori es & astounding prophecies of the clampatriarch, the Credo in absurdum according to St. Vitus, the one true & [Leather Bound], An hour's walk through Yerba Buena : the town that existed for eleven years seven months and five days then became San Francisco 1957 [Leather Bound]. Ticket sales at the Marysville Theater were also weak, leaving manager Douglas short of funds and the Company's future in doubt. New chapters sprang up in Los Angeles (Platrix Chapter #2) and other major cities in California, and were numbered sequentially. However, sainthood was denied him, for it was suspected that he never actually bit his tongue off, and that perhaps he did not resist his altar-bound intercourse as much as his legend claims. What does E Clampus Vitus mean? I went through chapter 1827. Not long after forming their Chapter Redivivus, however, a mysterious stranger telephoned Wheat, claiming to have been, in his youth, the last Noble Grand Humbug of the last practicing lodge. The Squibob Chapter of E Clampus Vitus pulls into SAM'S DIEGO SHOW to shed some light on what they truly are all about. The early history of the organization is unclear. Gale OneFile: Business, https://link-gale-com.libdbmjc.yosemite.edu/apps/doc/A186882569/GPS?u=modestojc_main&sid=GPS&xid=9c61987e. Despite St. Vitus's death, the order survived as a monastic tradition carried on by the Vituscan brothers. Once he has been asked to answer several questions, the Scales of Darkness (the blindfold) are removed, the new member "sees the light", is handed the Staff of Relief, is presented the Stone of Enigma, and appointed Chairman of the Most Important Committee. Samuel G. George 1855~ at the best online prices at eBay! It was they who introduced the central Clamper symbol, the Staff of Relief, a decidedly phallic image. Enraged at the man responsible for leaving too large a chamberpot in her room, she had the foul toilet forced onto the mans head. Never mind. Free shipping. LOL, I assume you meant join. We ate, laughed, danced, and drank until we were thrown out at midnight. Id like to personally thank all of you who helped out. 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