Ugly Club membership certificate, 1821, George Christian Hutter (1793-1879)

“Amicitia Vinum Vitae Est.”

            
In testimony that George C. Hutter on the fifteenth day of December In the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighteen was found to “need no tragic vizard to increase his natural deformity of face,” to entitle him to a membership of THE UGLY CLUB of Easton, in the County of Northampton, and State of Pennsylvania: And that, he has uniformely conducted himself in so constitutional a manner, as to secure to himself the friendship and esteem of the said Society, of which, by his Absence he is an honorary Member. His fellow Members have this day voted him this, his Memento.

Done at their Hall, in Easton,

                                                                           
                                                By order of his Ugliness,
                                                      F. W. Mueller Secry.

Hutter appears to have attained membership in 1818 when he was living in Pennsylvania. The certificate was issued in 1821 when Hutter was in the army and stationed in Florida as indicated by the handwritten notation on the reverse.

“Amicitia Vinum Vitae Est.” translates to: "Friendship is the Wine of Life"


The Ugly Club was a social group that spread across Europe and early America in the 1700’s, with the first recorded American club starting in 1739. As Dr. Alexander Hamilton, member of The Ugly Club of Annapolis describes, the clubs provided a space for members to “argue and debate among various subjects, and to discuss points of knotty and obscure nature.” Ugly Clubs were also popular fraternity groups among college campuses up until the end of the Civil War. Schools such as the University of Virginia, University of North Carolina, and Washington and Lee (Washington College at the time) all had records of active Ugly Clubs.