Hague and Brooks even ran the college store. Three were military lieutenants and Brooks was a captain.

The six were active college students, members of literary and academic societies and athletic groups, and editors of campus publications. The six Founders of Phi Sigma Kappa were: The six sophomores, meeting in Old North Hall, banded together during the summer of 1873 to form a 'society to promote morality, learning and social culture.' Early members recalled that it was Henry Hague who suggested that, since the six were close and were not interested in either of the two local fraternities on campus, they create their own. Among its other students in the early 1870s, it had attracted six men of varied backgrounds, ages, abilities, and goals in life who saw the need for a new and different kind of society on campus. Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst, now the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is the setting for the founding of Phi Sigma Kappa.