Project Scroll Research Note 2026-03: Ephraim Bee in the newspapers, 1855–1860: the remembered founder of E Clampus Vitus in records of his own day

Ephraim Bee of Doddridge County, Virginia, is remembered as the founder of E Clampus Vitus, but everything told of his part comes from accounts written in 1863 or later, and from a notice of 1853 that survives only as a quotation of 1931. Newspapers of his own day, read on the page, show him in the order from 1855, and show the joke growing as it went. In April 1855 a Clarksburg paper reported "Ephraim Bee, the Gwand Iwiseutis of the Eclampus Vitus," declaring Know-Nothingism "a branch of his 'ancient and honorable order.'" In August 1856 he was "the Grand Hote Tote," with "despatches from the Emperor of China." In February 1858 a Parkersburg paper had him lecturing on the order at Richmond, where initiations were "nightly performed." And in March 1860 a Richmond report called him "Grand Lama" of an order "introduced into the United States on the return of the Hon. Caleb Cushing." These are the earliest records of Bee in the order we have found that can be read on the page, and they put Caleb Cushing into the story years before the earliest telling we had found, in the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer of 1 February 1867. Project Scroll Research Note 2026-03, version 1. The note sets out the record quoted, where it is held, what it changes, its limits, and what was searched before calling it new. Web version: projectscroll.com/discoveries/notes/2026-03/.