Rev. Otis Allan Glazebrook, (CSA)

Rev. Otis Allan Glazebrook, DD (CSA)

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29730241/otis_allan_glazebrook
• https://archivesweb.vmi.edu/rosters/record.php?ID=2700

Sgt., Company C, VMI Cadets, Class of 1866

Otis Allan Glazebrook was born at Richmond, Virginia, October 1845, the son of Larkin White Glazebrook (1820-1866) and America Henley Bullington (1824-1905). He was educated at Randolph-Macon College. An article in The Sunday Call (Newark, New Jersey) says: "Otis Glazebrook, when a mere lad in knickerbockers; evidenced an unusual aptitude for his studies, and distanced his classmates in every class with ease. He was never satisfied except he stood at the head of his class in every study. And yet as a lad, the future preacher took an active interest in sports of all kinds, and played 'shinny' and baseball, which was just beginning to be known among the college boys. So well did young Glazebrook play the national game that he was appointed captain of the baseball team when in college, and he caught on the team when the big stuffed glove was not in vogue, and many a bruised finger fell to the lot of the catcher." When withdrew from the union, he was sent immediately to the Virginia Military Institute, where he was educated as an officer for the Confederate Army, and fought under Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, he was was a member of the squad that buried Stonewall Jackson. After Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Otis resumed his studies.

The Military School at Lexington had never encouraged Greek letter societies, and there were none before the war. Although the Institute was practically discontinued during the last years of the war , it was the first to revive after peace had been declared, and therefore offered the first opportunity for the re-establishment of such societies in the South.

"The Earliest Days of Alpha Tau Omega," by Otis Allan Glazebrook (Official Register of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity 1865-1903, pages xx, xxi) he writes: "In the summer of 1865, Cadet Otis Allan Glazebrook, whom it was known would return to the Institute, was approached as to the feasibility of establishing a Greek letter fraternity at that Collage. The project did not commend itself to cadet Glazebrook at first, but the suggestion put him to thinking, and he determined to work out a plan of such a society as he thought would be best adapted to the new conditions in the South. He prepared the constitution and the form of initiation, these being written out by him at his fathers' residence in Richmond, Virginia.

He had two friends in the same city, with whom his relations were especially cordial and for whose character he had very high regard. He invited them to his father's house on the evening of September 11, 1865, and submitted to them his purpose and plan, as embodied in what he had written, and invited them to join him in the formation of a Greek letter society to be known as 'Alpha Tau Omega." These friends were Erskine Mayo Ross and Alfred Marshall.

He attended the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, and was ordained Deacon in the Episcopal Church 1868, and Priest in 1869. In September of 1865 he was recommended to the Vestry of St. John's Church Elizabeth, New Jersey, by Bishop Peterkin of West Virginia, and the Rev. Alexander Mackay-Smith (later Bishop of Pennsylvania), starting on the 1st November. Dr. Glazebrook served St. John's for 27 years, retiring in the spring of 1913.

In 1914 he was appointed American representative at Jerusalem by President Woodrow Wilson, where he remained throughout the First World war, until 1920. He was responsible for the distribution of Jewish relief funds, in which he received much assistance from his second wife. In 1920 he became American Consul in Nice, France, until March 1929, when he retired. He died at sea, Sunday, 26 April 1931 (GRO, Marine Deaths: Age 85, vessel "Belgenland").

Married (1st) 16 November 1864, Virginia Calvert Key, daughter of Francis Henry Smith, Superintendent of the Virginia Military Academy 1840-1889. She died 1905. (2nd) Emalina Adelia, daughter of Francis Ellwood Rumford, at St. George's (Anglican) Cathedral, Jerusalem,5 August/September 1914 (in the original register August is erased with the words: "A. S. Hitchins erased this"). She died at Nice, France, 1930. Children (by 1st wife): Larkin White (28 July 1867); Virginia Calvert Key (20 October 1869); Francis Henry: Haslett McKim (14 June 1879); Truxton (14 March 1881) Otis Allan (1887). Son of Larkin White Glazebrook and America Henley Bullington.

He was born at the corner of Second and East Clay Street in Richmond. Married, Virginia Calvert Key, October 17, 1866.

He was one of the three founders of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.

"History of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity

Alpha Tau Omega began as an idea in the mind of a young Civil War veteran who wanted peace and reconciliation. His name was Otis Allan Glazebrook. His people were defeated, many of their cities burned, much of their countryside ravaged. But Glazebrook, who had helped bury the dead of both sides, believed in a better future. He saw the bitterness and hatred that followed the silencing of the guns and knew that a true peace would come not from force of law, but rather from with the hearts of men who were willing to work to rekindle a spirit of brotherly love.

Glazebrook, deeply religious at age 19, believed that younger men like himself might be more willing to accept, forgive, and reunite with the Northern counterparts if motivated by Christian, brotherly love. But he needed an organization, a means of gathering and organizing like-minded people.

In Richmond, Glazebrook consulted with University of Virginia alumni who furnished further information concerning fraternities. He discovered that they were not Greek in name only, but Greek throughout. Their mottoes, besides being written in Greek, reflected Greek ideals. Greek philosophy, sometimes tinged with the medieval mysteries and Masonic lore, waste the cultural ideal of the fraternities.

The name came spontaneously. He remembered the ancient insignia of the Church, the Tau Cross subjoined by Alpha and Omega. "Alpha" and "Omega" signify to the Christian absolute plenitude or perfection. "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." Joined with the Cross the whole signifies that Christ is all in all, the beginning and end of salvation.

Having projected a Christian fraternity and appropriated a distinctively Christian symbol for its name, the Cross naturally was its logical emblem. In the center he inscribed a crescent, three stars, the Tau Cross and clasped hands. Upon the upper and lower vertical arms he placed the Greek letters for Alpha and Omega and upon the horizontal arms, the Omega and Alpha letters respectively.

On September 11, 1865, Glazebrook invited two close friends, Alfred Marshall and Erskine Mayo Ross, to his home at 114 East Clay Street in Richmond, Virginia. There, in the rear parlor, he read them the Constitution he had written and invited them to sign. As they did, Alpha Tau Omega was born. It was the first fraternity founded after the Civil War, and the first sign of Greek life in the old Confederacy."

taken from: http://www.duke.edu/web/ato/history.html

Buried at sea.

---

Otis Allan Glazebrook, Class of 1866:
New Market Cadet; Corporal, Company D.
He was one of the founders of Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity.
Genealogy:
Born: October 13, 1845, in Richmond, Virginia
Father: Larkin White Glazebrook; Mother: America Henley Bullington.
Paternal Grandfather: John Glazebrook; Pat. Grandmother- Judith Blackwell.
Maternal Grandparents: unknown.
Married: Virginia Calvert Key on October 17, 1866.
Children: 1st: Dr. Larkin White Glazebrook; 2nd: Virginia Calvert Key; 3rd: Frank Henry Glazebrook; 4th: Haslett McKim Glazebrook; 5th: Otis Allan Glazebrook, II
Careers: Episcopal Minister-Diplomat.
Died: April 26, 1931 at sea.

Name Otis Glazebrook
Enlistment Date 15 May 1864
Enlistment Place Lexington, Virginia
Enlistment Rank Corporal
Muster Date 15 May 1864
Muster Place Virginia
Muster Regiment VMI Battn Infantry
Muster Regiment Type Infantry
Muster Information Enlisted
Side of War Confederacy
Residence Place Lexington, Virginia
Occupation VMI Student
Title Index to Compiled Confederate Military Service Records