The early period of Pi Lambda Phi is wrapped in a veil of mystery and has, thus far, defied efforts to research thoroughly. Many of the early archives have either been lost or destroyed. This can be attributed to the erratic character of the fraternity in and around its creation. Chapters sprang up overnight and disappeared with equal haste, leaving scant records of their short-lived careers. Not even membership rolls have been found.
We only know pieces of information about our earliest chapters at Yale, Columbia, College of the City of New York (C.C.N.Y.) and New York University. Furthermore, we know almost nothing of the Delta chapter, which existed between 1895 and 1900 at the University of Pennsylvania, Epsilon at Harvard, Lambda at Cornell or Nu at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Microcosm, a yearbook published by the C.C.N.Y., class of 1899, has a page devoted to Pi Lambda Phi, which lists the eight chapters named above.