California, cdlib.orgYale Daily News, 4 February 2003 David Shire, Buffalo Music Hall of fame, buffalomusic.org Architecture The organization is housed in a structure acquired by the Society in 1911 which looks out on the New Haven Green. The three-story colonial-era white clapboard house is, in fact, the oldest of all Yale's secret society buildings, and purportedly one of the oldest original structures in the United States still in regular use. Its brick basement is older still, constructed in the early 17th century, and later frequented by colonists sympathetic to the English cause when it became known as the Tory Tavern, a central locale of the Revolutionary War. Following the War, the town of New Haven confiscated the building from its Loyalist owner for his activities. The building has also been expanded to the rear several times. During the demonstrations and student strikes associated with the New Haven Black Panther trials and other civil unrest in 1970, numbers of the twelve thousand protesters at times found refuge inside the Elihu building. The building is among the largest of the societies, belying the modest clapboard facade, and contains two single guest rooms in addition to beds for all the current undergraduate members, as well as a large formal meeting room, a library, formal dining room, and an informal 'tap room' in the basement. The club also has a section of the old Yale Fence in its basement, a relic from the famous structure removed in 1888. Another tradition on campus is that Elihu contains original papers of the author James Fenimore Cooper, even drafts of his epic novel The Last of the Mohicans'', in its collection. Author Cooper wasn't a member of Elihu as he was expelled from Yale in 1805, a century before the society was founded. However, his great-grandson James Fenimore Cooper, Jr. (1892–1918) was a member of the 1913 delegation. Elihu Yale Lecture The society sponsors the Elihu Yale Lecture, the first of which was delivered in 2002 by architect and city planner Alexander Garvin, an Elihu member. The 2005 lecture was delivered by actor Sam Waterston, also an Elihu member. See also Collegiate secret societies in North America Notes External links Elihu Club house, Yale University Manuscripts & Archives Secret Societies: Tombs and Tradition, Yale Daily News, 30 June 2002 How the Secret Societies Got That Way, Yale Alumni Magazine Elihu Senior Society website 1903 establishments in the