To tell the story of the early Mystic Society of the Memphi one must inevitably tell the story of Colton Greene. Not only was he the Society's founder and first Sublime Ouro... it was his idea and promotional ability which made possible the Mardi Gras in Memphis, around which and through which the early Memphi functioned.

Colton Greene was a virile young cavalry officer who had a pronounced effect on Memphis of the 1870's and 1880's. Aside from a few stories handed down from father to son, there is nothing to trace his history but the yellowed newspaper files. a few letters, and his will, which was probated in 1900. Enough does remain, however, to establish one fact ... Colton Greene was a "character."

A reporter for the Memphis Commercial, the city's then major newspaper, had difficulty in piecing together even the bare biographical facts of his early life for his obituary, appearing in 1890. Vague reference is made to the fact that he was born "somewhere" in South Carolina in 1832, later moved to St. Louis where he remained until the outbreak of the Civil War. He was commissioned a Captain under General Sterling Price, later commanded a brigade of cavalry ...emerging a Brigadier General at the age of thirty-one. What about his family ... his relatives ... his education ... his vocation? The record is conspicuous for its silence. Even his will gives no clue. Though he died a bachelor with a quite sizeable estate, no relative is mentioned. Perhaps these things are unimportant to relating the Memphis story of Colton Greene ... but they do serve to illustrate one point ... he apparently made a deliberate effort to conceal his past from Memphis folk. Perhaps more significant he seemingly took great delight in accenting this point and surrounding himself with an air of mystery. It was all part and parcel of his gift for the dramatic, which seems to have dominated his Memphis success. One "father-to-son" story has it that he arrived in Memphis one cold winter morning in 1868 astride a fractious roan stallion ... both horse and rider immaculately groomed. In those days when our streets were six inches deep in mud ... this was quite an accomplishment and must have taken considerable preparation even for showman Greene.

After his death two things turned up which serve to shed some further light on the life and character of this unusual man. Several days after his funeral a letter was received by the Memphis Commercial ... signed only by the initials "E.L." The writer claimed that he was a former U.S. Senator from Missouri and knew Greene intimately. The gist of his letter was that Colton Greene narrowly missed being responsible for firing the first shot of the Civil War. It seems that he was the leading figure in an organization of "minute men" who planned to seize the U.S. Arsenal and Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis on New Year's Eve in 1861 ... four months before Fort Johnson started hostilities by opening her batteries on Fort Sumter. According to the letter several thousand Southern sympathizers were scheduled for the assault. It failed only because word leaked out prematurely and the commander of Jefferson Barracks called for reinforcements and placed cannons in front of both the barracks and the arsenal.

COLTON GREENE'S MEXICAN ADVENTURES

Years later the biographers of General Sterling Price (Greene's commanding officer) recounted the fact that Colton Greene had formed an important part of Price's expedition to Mexico immediately after the war where they joined forces with Emperor Maximilian...then fighting a last-ditch stand to retain his throne. Maximilian had apparently promised these valiant officers, who refused to surrender their swords to the victorious Yankees, a sanctuary in Mexico ... perhaps even a Confederate government in exile. Whatever the price for their services ... it was a poor gamble. for Maximilian's government collapsed in October of 1866, and he was subsequently captured by the Republican forces under Juarez and executed on June 19, 1867. General Price returned to his home in Missouri in November of I866...but Greene apparently disappeared for one year before his arrival in Memphis.

Both incidents are definitely "in character" for Colton Greene ... also in character is the fact that he was a cavalry officer, who like General J. E. B. Stuart, dashed into the thick of battle with a brilliant sash around his waist and golden spurs on his heels. A true son of the deep South, he was wholly apart of the culture of his time ...a culture which had its roots deep in the chivalry, the gallantry. and social graces of plantation life. To him honor was a sacred thing ... for which he was prepared to risk his life in the best traditions of the old Code Duello...or in a gallant (hilt reckless) cavalry charge at Pea Ridge, Arkansas.

For him the courtly elegance of ante-belium social life held a charm never quite to be forgotten. Highly educated, well traveled, a student and connoisseur of the arts, a linguist who could speak French, German, or Italian with equal fluency...he was always at home in the classic plantation ballroom resplendent with its prismatic chandeliers and elaborate old world furnishings ... not to mention its beautifully gowned ladies.

POST CIVIL WAR MEMPHIS

When Colton Greene arrived here in 1868 the white columned mansions still lined Beale Street, Vance, Adams and Front, but the great ballrooms which had once been the center of social life for this Planter Capital were silent. It was a city of poverty ... a city of unbelievable filth ... a city of despair. For Memphis...occupation by Union soldiers had come early and so had the carpetbaggers, the Freedman's Bureau and all the other burning humiliations of reconstruction. It had never been a really clean city ... now the filth and stench defied description. The suburban streets were quagmires of mud; the wooden-block pavements of the downtown area were rotting and odoriferous, and into the restless Gayoso Bayou was emptied the sewage, the garbage, and the dead animals. There was little provision for sanitation in the city charter ... taxes were impossible to collect and what was collected was being soaked up by a local administration which was rotten with graft and corruption.

Even more deplorable than the condition of the city itself ... was the fact that little if no effort was being made to straighten things out. The town was split up into at least three or four factions ... which James Keating reported were "stimulated by prejudices, jealousy and fairly well grounded suspicion." The Union military forces armed one group: the traders and merchants another: the old aristocratic families were split among themselves ... and lastly there was the growing immigrant population consisting of Irish, Germans, and Italians which formed the chief labor force. Apparently none of these groups would cooperate with another ... and no one faction was strong enough to assume leadership. Anyone who cooperated even remotely with the military government was suspect and completely ostracized from every group.

GENERAL COLTON GREENE--THE ORGANIZER

Incredible as it may seem ... it was against this background of hopelessness and despair that Colton Greene created the first Memphi and sponsored the first Mardi Gras in 1872. A native son, regardless of his ability as a leader, could never have accomplished the job. It took a stranger with his particular faculties for organization and showmanship to pull the "warring" factions of the city together ito a homogeneous group. As a Confederate Brigadier General, and an obvious aristocrat of the old school, he gained the full support of the old families: as a linguist captured the respect and even love of the foreign element by giving of his time and effort to help integrate them into the community: as an astute business man and Cowman he enlisted the cooperation of the merchants (both Southern and Yankee) and sold them on the idea that if they did not foot the bills for the "big party"...Memphis was going to die a slow death and with it the market for their Merchandise. To springboard the idea ...Greene picked his first Lieutenants carefully: First, was Joe Specht, a merchant, who was to rally the other merchants behind him to furnish the bulk of the money. Second was Col. M. C. Galloway, editor of The Avalanche, whose chief task was to supply the publicity; and third and last was Lou Leubrie, professional showman and owner of the New Memphis Theatre, who was to select the motif for the Mardi Gras celebration and the other dramatic effects needed. By the winter of 1871, the idea was beginning to bear fruit. The Avalanche ran a series of features on the benefits New Orleans was deriving from the Mardi Gras pageants ... Lou Leubrie formed a committee of the "old citizens" to visit the Bayou City to scout the actual organization and detail for the celebration.

But Joe Specht had the toughest job ... raising the money for the floats. The merchants were skeptical, and it was not until January 1st that the funds were collected, and even then they took the extra precaution of setting up a "cover charge" for all participants.

Whatever doubts Greene, his lieutenants, and his merchant sponsors may have cherished, however, soon vanished on the morning of February 13th. After ten long years of social drought, Memphians and their neighbors throughout the tri-states were strictly ready for the "Big Party." By ten o'clock (when masking began) the streets, the hotels, the taverns were thronged with twenty thousand revelers ... indeed a remarkable achievement when the total population of the city was a bare forty thousand.

CELEBRATION OF THE CARNIVAL

By noon the festivities were in full sway ... not to mention many gaily costumed revelers. Inside the famous old Green Tree House, proprietor John Ringwald was confronted with a serious problem: He was about to run out of beer ... a thing he or his "house" could never live down. He had ordered more to he brought up from one of the river packets but goodness knew when it would get there. Suddenly he had an idea ...why not change the drinks? His famed bull voice roared out above the shouts of merriment. "Drinks on the house, gentlemen." There was a scramble of gaily attired cavaliers for the bar as another barrel of "Old Timer" was opened. In recounting the above scene at the Green Tree House the reporter for The Avalanche further recorded in his column the next morning:

"Kings were arm-in-arm with peasants, princes hobnobbed with Biddies, Saracens and Crusaders were inseparable as Siamese Twins: Bismarck drank liquor with Louis Napoleon: Lord Cornwallis and Washington danced a Highland Fling to the music of 'Sugar in the Gourd.''

What The Avalanche reporter really wanted to say (but could not afford to) was that the merchants were drinking with the old citizens....the Germans and Irish were joining in and even a few of the hated Yanks were finding good companionship in the midst of it all. The whole city had caught the spirit. For a while at least, the depressive reconstruction was pushed into the background. Rare old wines and fine silver were dug from secret places for the first time since the threat of Yankee invasion. Miraculously the red-lined cloaks of Confederate gray appeared from secret hiding.

That night the grand parade got under way from the old Charleston Depot ...moved down Adams to Second, Second to Market and then to Main Street ... and thence past the reviewing stand at the Overton Hotel at the corner of Poplar. Every place in town which would hold a crowd had been converted into a ballroom ... even the Greenlaw Opera House at the southwest corner of Union and Second across from the present site of the Peabody Hotel. The chief of police had printed a public announcement that there would be no fines for "too much spirits"...but in the same breath warned that carriers of dangerous weapons would be "severely dealt with"...and that night the town really let its hair down in more ways than one.

But over at the New Memphis Theatre (northeast corner of Jefferson and Third) things were proceeding with a little more decorum. Only invited guests were admitted here ... for this was the night that the Memphi was really born. The Overtons, the Hills, the Brinkleys, the Mallorys, Trezevants, Randolphs...all the old families were here. A special orchestra had been brought up from New Orleans for the occasion ... and for a while, at least, they seemed to recapture some of the old gaiety, the almost forgotten way of life of ante-bellum times. But in the ante-room a more serious business was taking place ... Cotton Greene was unfolding his idea for the Memphi...a secret society which would permanently assume the responsibility of promoting the Carnival in future years. Showman Greene could not lose this opportunity to strike while the iron was hot. Memphis had that day seen what could be accomplished if all the factions really pulled their oars together for the common good despite their differences in social standing and political philosophy.

Quite naturally ...Colton Greene became the first Sublime Ouro of the Society, a position he apparently held until 1881. Within these nine years, the Memphi was destined to gather into its midst the most prominent and influential citizens of the day ... many of whom later became people of national renown. There was Carl Guthers, artist and decorator of the Congressional Library; Fred Anderson, painter of the now famous "Race of the Lee and Natchez"; General Luke Wright, soldier and statesman, who later became governor of the Philippines.

NEW THEMES FOR MEMPHI

Each year the Memphi presented a new theme for the subject of the tableaux. One year it was the legendary history of Greece, another the story of De Soto's discovery of the Mississippi. No effort was spared to see to it that the designing of the costumes and float motifs was accurate. Colton Greene reportedly even made a visit to Egypt in order that the Mardi Gras with the "Egyptian theme" would be unquestionably authentic. Soon the Memphis Carnivals were attracting even more attention than those of New Orleans and Mobile.

Despite all of this the Memphi was in every sense of the word a Secret Society. A few of the leaders could not conceal their identity, but for the most part their names remain a secret to this day. Actually the membership was rather small and probably did not include over one hundred. Undoubtedly Greene wanted to keep the actual membership small and exclusive to sustain the element of secrecy and at the same time preserve a more compact organization for administration purposes. Every year, however, the Memphi sent out hundreds of beautifully colored invitations to the masked ball to he held on Shrove Tuesday. The name of the sender was not disclosed ... only the name Memphi appeared in blazing letters at the top. People who made a serious effort to find out who had mailed the invitation were not invited again. The Memphi was sensitive about its secrecy. Also, anyone who received a bid considered himself too fortunate to be overly inquisitive.

To be Queen of the Memphi Ball was an honor to which every young debutante aspired, for the Queen of the Memphi was also the queen of Memphis social life. Miss Mary Walker Mansfield received this honor for the first ball officially sponsored by the Society back in 1873. It was truly a grand affair ... and remembered this day by the older families. Theodore Thomas, a world famous musician of his day and father of the American symphony orchestra, conducted the music for the occasion ... for which he was paid the then enormous sum of $700.00.

THE PLAGUE STRIKES MEMPHIS

But good things seldom run smoothly. In 1873 and again in 1878. Memphis was struck by a catastrophe of even greater magnitude than that experienced during the war or the reconstruction which followed ... an epidemic of bubonic plague, Asiatic cholera and yellow fever. Approximately one-third of the city's population died in these two epidemics. The plight aroused the sympathy of the entire civilized world. England. France, German, India and many other nations ... not to mention other sections of this country, poured in contributions to help the stricken city. New York alone sent checks for $43,800. But, this and all the other contributions were not enough. By January 1879, the city was bankrupt, surrendered its charter ... and became a state tax district ... losing its corporate identity as a municipality for twelve years.

Throughout this terrible ordeal, however, the Memphi was not asleep. Following both epidemics it again put on the Mardi Gras. This took nerve, and the effort attracted national attention.

When Edward King wrote his classic "Southern States of North America" in 1875, he found this to be the most remarkable thing about Memphis and recorded his thoughts in the flowery language of this day:

"The terrible visitation (the yellow fever) did not, however, prevent Memphis from holding her annual Carnival and repeating in the streets, so lately filled with funerals, the gorgeous pageants of the mysterious 'Memphi' such as the Egyptians gazed on 2,000 years before Christ was born, the pretty theaters being filled with the echoes of delicious music. The Carnival is now so firmly rooted in the affections of the citizens of Memphis that nothing can unsettle it."

Today it is impossible to truly evaluate the good which the Memphi and Colton Greene did for the city of Memphis during those trying days of Reconstruction and yellow fever. The first two Carnivals helped to bring about a unity among the townsfolk which would probably have been impossible through any other means. Although the original purpose of Memphi was ostensibly social ...Colton Greene and his lieutenants were men of vision and used it simply as an instrument for civic betterment. Though the record is incomplete there is ample evidence to indicate that Greene's real purpose in organizing the Memphi ... was to gather the necessary leadership to clean up the city. Even before the first Mardi Gras was staged he was trying to improve sanitation. Later he visited and studied the sewage and sanitation system of practically every important city in the country ... and reportedly was given the full credit for planning our present system of sanitation by the newspapers of that day ... and mind you, this credit was given while the City Officials who actually did the job were still alive. He was always the mystery man ... moving behind the scenes ... doing the planning and picking the leaders.

THE MARDI GRAS OF 1881

The last Mardi Gras, under the sponsorship of the Memphi, was held in 1881, and after this the Society was apparently disbanded. Certainly it gave no more of its elaborate parties under its own name ... but it ceased to function in name only. In the same year The Tennessee Club was founded, also by Colton Greene, who became its first President and served for six terms thereafter. The incorporators were: C. W. Metcalf, U. W. Miller, I. M. Hill, H. C. Warriner and David P. "Pappy" Hadden. According to the late J. M. Semmes, last surviving member of the Memphi, these incorporators of The Tennessee Club as well as most of the original members were also members of the Mystic Society of The Memphi.