Petal and Thorn
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Petal and Thorn was established in 1927 by friends of Alexis Felix du Pont, Jr. du Pont, a native of Wilmington, Delaware and member of the prestigious du Pont family. Felix was visiting family and friends in Wilmington while on break from Princeton University when he and friends decided the University of Delaware lacked the secret societies that many of the Ivy League's schools had had for many years. Friends of du Pont that attended the University of Delaware went back to school with a mandate from Felix to establish a secret society which would have his backing. The mission statement of the society, named in the same fashion as many Ivy League secret societies, was to have control of the politics and goings on at the university. Felix's friends, of which there were three, chose seven of the most influential juniors from the university's student body. It is unknown who these original ten students were, but it is known during spring of their senior year they chose ten more juniors to replace them. The society borrowed heavily from rumors of other organizations including Yale's Skull and Bones. Petal and Thorn is believed to have used or currently use rose and compass rose imagery in ceremony. Little more is known about the organization beyond their affinity for coordinating and controlling school politics. It is widely accepted that the intentions of the society are good. Students chosen for the society are not published in the university newspaper, the Review, which explains why there is no known list of members outside the society, although students that hold high positions in influential student organizations are said to comprise the annual ten chosen to replace the outgoing seniors.
Nearly all the information included in this article was discovered in the estate of A. Felix du Pont Jr. upon his death in 1996 in the form of letters and correspondences between him and his three friends that had attended the University of Delaware and presumably created Petal and Thorn. In all of the correspondences his three friends are not called by their actual names, but instead Thornman 1, Thornman 2 and Thornman 3.
