Thomas I. Chatfield

Thomas I. Chatfield, Eta, 1893, Phi Alpha 1911-1912

Thomas I. Chatfield, Eta, 1893, was a prominent member of the
New York City Bar. After receiving his law degree from Columbia Law School, he
practiced with the firms of Miller & Miller and Decker, and Allen & Chatfield. In 1903, he was
appointed first assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Four years later, he was appointed judge for that district, by President Theodore
Roosevelt, and served in that capacity until his death.

Brother Chatfield received a Junior philosophical oration appointment and membership
in Phi Beta Kappa at Yale. He was a trustee of the Eta chapter at Yale for many years
and was the first Eta brother to serve as Phi Alpha of the Fraternity. He was the
publisher with Israel C. Pierson of The Songs of Zeta Psi in 1897, 1903 and 1914 and
editor of the Bulletin of the Zeta Psi Fraternity of North America, the predecessor of The
Circle.

An ancestor of Brother Chatfield, Joel Chatfield, “for years supplied Yale College with all
the wheat flour used there.” This occurred in the first three decades of the 1800s.