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The "Knights of Pythias", founded in 1864, was not a fraternal benefit society but rather a traditional fraternity more along the lines of the "Masons" and "Odd Fellows". Founded in Washington, D.C., it was originally meant as an organization of government employees but it promptly grew beyond that. It was enormously popular, gaining nearly half a million members in its first thirty years. This in spite of at least two bankruptcies and an internal Civil War that almost tore the Order apart in its first decade. Most of the founding members left (or were forced out of) the order. Rathbone, the founder, probably spent as much time out of the order as he did in it. |