CLAMPERS: Good deeds and even better pranks,
My enlightenment occurred one Saturday morning when my oldest son returned from town with several bags of craft type supplies. Being a talented artist, I asked him what his project was. His answer was simple but totally unexpected.
He and three of his friends were making their costumes for the initiation that night and, if all went well, they would be Clampers by morning, he said with a grin. Having no idea what a Clamper was, a quick and frantic internet search gave me an answer as well as dispelling a falsehood.
The answer was that Clampers were members of the E Clampus Vitus, an organization known for its boisterous get-togethers and tongue-in-cheek approach to history among other things. The falsehood was that the men in the matching red shirts, black cowboy hats and leather vests were not in fact members of a square dance club as my nervous and overly protective grandmother had told me in my youth.
Armed with this new information, I was slightly less surprised early the next morning with the return of my exhausted but smiling son dressed as a giant California poppy. Of the four prospects that fateful night, he told me two of his friends had fled immediately upon arrival while the third had made it through half of the initiation before fleeing as well. My son, as the sole survivor of the event and sporting a first-place ribbon for his costume, declared it the best night of his life to date.
The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus, or ECV, was started in West Virginia by a local tavern and inn owner named Ephraim Bee.
Bee found the many popular organizations of the time to be pompous and much too serious, neither of which would describe him on any level. So, in about 1845, he formed his new and more playful organization to basically thumb his nose at the other staunchly traditional and self-important fraternities. The lighthearted fun and shenanigans were a welcome relief from the daily hardships of life, and the organization began to grow in both popularity and members. He had no way of knowing it at the time, but in a few short years his creation would be heading to the gold fields.
In one of the many wagon trains heading west in the wake of the discovery of gold in California, partners Joseph Zumwalt and C.W. Wright were on their way to the “diggins” in the hopes of finding their own fame and fortune. It was a routine stop for supplies in Bowling Green, Missouri, that took the men to a local newspaper office in search of information on the stretch of road ahead.
The two men not only got the important information they wanted but also spotted some copies of a publication written by a certain Ephraim Bee and titled “Ecclampus Vitus,” which told stories of the absurdly entertaining initiation proceedings of a relatively unknown social society. Zumwalt and Wright both decided to take a copy as the journey was long and some light reading would be a welcome distraction. The ECV was headed west.
While Wright seems to have disappeared early into this adventure, Zumwalt arrived at the diggins in 1849 and moved from location to location looking for the strike that would change his life. Mining was a hard and dangerous life filled with long days of backbreaking work and hardships, but he remembered the amusement he had found from the little booklet about the not-soserious organization that he kept among his meager possessions.
Zumwalt decided that this was just what he and his fellow miners needed. It would take a few tries and a few rejections before he finally landed in Mokelumne Hill in 1851. The Moke Hill miners were all too eager for some good laughs, and if it was at someone else's expense, well, that was even better. The Clampers had arrived.
Today, despite near extinction in the early part of the 20th century, the E Clampus Vitus are alive and well here despite the challenges we are all facing right now. The list of past and present members' names is impressive and well known to say the least. And I am going to let you in on a little secret: The members of Matuca (Mariposa-tuolumne-calaveras) are true and dedicated historians. Their beautiful and unique monuments and plaques pepper the roadsides and buildings of our area, each one a mini history lesson of a story, location or event that would otherwise be lost.
I have come across their work in some of the most out-of-theway locations and more than once snapped a picture and rushed home to see what else I could find on the subject. That is what makes a good historian, and I respect their work and dedication. I encourage you to go to their website and read for yourself their full and rich history. I promise you will not be disappointed.
When I decided to do this story, I asked a friend in the ECV for a list of some of the celebrity Clampers just for fun. I have to admit, at least one of them came as a total surprise: Former President Ronald Reagan; country singer Buck Owens; comedian Larry the Cable Guy; movie star and war hero Gene Autry; Roger Moore, best known for his portrayal of James Bond; the Hager Twins from the country music show “Hee Haw”; three of the Cartwrights from Bonanza, Loren Green, Pernell Roberts and Michael Landon (I guess Dan Blocker did not like to have fun); and, before boldly going where no man had gone before — and probably the most surprising of all for me at least — Leonard Nimoy. I am still trying to wrap my head around that one.
So the next time you see those men in the black hats and vests with the rough and rowdy reputation, walk up, shake their hands and say thank you for all their hard work in the preservation of the history we love. I promise they won't bite. It's those square dance clubs you have to watch out for.