Do you suffer from friggatriskaidekaphobia (and you say, “I don’t even know how to pronounce it, so how could I be afflicted with it!?!”). Maybe not, but it may affect up to ten percent of Americans. According to the Mayo Clinic, in clinical terms a phobia “is an overwhelming and unreasonable fear of an object or situation that poses little real danger but provokes anxiety and avoidance.”
This particular phobia, as it relates to a certain calendar date, may only be experienced one to three times per year. Although it haunts millions of people no one seems to know definitively when and where the notion of “Friday the 13th” being an unlucky day, or for that matter the number “13” being associated with misfortune and bad luck, originated.
Historical newspaper evidence suggests that the day (Friday) itself was considered unlucky:
The people had begun to feel safe again, when, on Friday last, (unlucky day) . . .1
MEMORANDA OF A WEEK . . . Thursday pleasant waggons [sic] loaded with goods passing in every direction – better to move the last of March on Thursday, than the first of April on Friday; why? Because Friday is an unlucky day.2
The notion of Friday as an unlucky day appears to have been a matter of faith:
Friday was regarded by the Norsemen as the luckiest day of the week; among Christians generally it has been regarded as the unluckiest, because it was the day of Our Lord’s crucifixion, and is a fast-day in the Catholic Church. Mohammedans (among whom Friday is the Sabbath) say that Adam was created on a Friday, and legend has it that it was on a Friday that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and on a Friday that they died. Among the Buddhists and Brahmins it is also held to be unlucky; and the old Romans called it nefastus, from the utter overthrow of their army at Gallia Narbonensis. In England the proverb is that “a Friday moon brings foul weather,” but it is not, apparently, unlucky to be born on this day, for according to the old rhyme, “Friday’s child is loving and giving.”3
By the early 1800s the notion of “unlucky Friday” had been around for ages, but one “philosopher” was challenging it as folly in 1830. It had become such a nuisance as to disrupt everyday business and life:
Friday. The Pagan superstitions connected with Friday, still retain their existence among us, and, with other delusions, show too plainly that the progress of knowledge is not so great as some people imagine. There are many persons in this county, who could not be induced to set up the frame of a building, begin a journey, commence spinning, or engage in any new business on a Friday. This is all folly. Friday is neither better nor worse, neither more nor less unlucky than Wednesday or Thursday; and one Friday is just as good as any other Friday. Those who adhere to the silly notions of former times, say that Friday is an unlucky day, and that whatever is commenced then, will prove disastrous. It is wonderful that such a stupid notion should so long have been retained among a Christian people. “Let me ask the observers of Friday,” says an intelligent writer, “whence you came by the opinion that this is an unlucky day? Did you learn it from your bibles? Has God anywhere informed you that when, in the course of the six days of creation, that day first appeared, and when he pronounced his productions of that day ‘very good’, he, notwithstanding, designed the day itself to be very bad? Surely you will not charge God foolishly. If you believe that some evil agent busies himself in mischief of that day, and relinquish your lawful pursuits through fear of him, you do homage to the devil. Ye worship ye know not what.”4
Theories abound regarding the notion of tacking on “13” to the historically unlucky day of Friday, including those who believe it dates back to hundreds of years before Christ in 1780 B.C. when Code of Hammurabi was enacted without a thirteenth law (but, then again, there was no numeration in the text either).5 Some point out that the number 12 signifies completeness and evidence abounds for this theory: 12 Zodiac signs, 12 months in a year, Jesus had 12 disciples, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 hours on the clock, just to name a few. Of course, there is the exception to that rule – a “baker’s dozen” always refers to one extra donut or pastry (yum!) added to the order, making it thirteen.
As time went on the notion of “unlucky 13” became more prevalent in the nineteenth century – until someone decided to challenge it head-on.
The Thirteen Club
William Fowler was well-acquainted with the number 13, it having been “strangely woven” with his life. Fowler, a Civil War veteran, had served in thirteen battles, retired from the Army on August 13, 1863 and leased the club’s headquarters on the 13th day of the month, later founding the Thirteen Club. Everything purposefully fell into place – down to the minutest detail (almost):
New York City has a “Thirteen Club”, the members of which are supposed to especially hold in contempt the popular superstition about that number. The first dinner of the club was given January 13th, at the Knickerbocker, 454 Sixth Avenue. There are 13 letters in Knickerbocker, and the sum of 4, 5, and 4 is 13. The dinner was given in room 13, and the members on entering passed under a ladder with 13 rungs, decorated with an old American flag with 13 stars and 13 stripes. At the second dinner Captain William Fowler, in whose name are 13 letters, solemnly led the way into the banquet hall, which was lighted by 13 gas jets. There was some trouble in finding a waiter free from superstition, and the diners had to put up with one who wouldn’t carry out the 13 idea. He refused to bring in 13 plates of soup, and brought in 12, and poured 14 glasses of wine and 14 cups of coffee, drinking the extra one. He also refused to pass under the 13 rung ladder. The club is an excellent one for those who have leisure for such elaborate fooling.6
One newspaper referred to Fowler’s organization as a “strange club”, composed of men who practiced “wanton superstition”. Amazingly, they managed to hang around until the 1920s. Were members just out for a “jolly good time”? Stay tuned for more next week (the day after “Friday, the 13th”, as the article concludes.
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Footnotes:
- The Daily Commonwealth (Topeka, Kansas), February 12, 1870, accessed at www.newspapers.com on November 6, 2026, 2.
- The Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), April 28, 1825, accessed at www.newspapers.com on
November 6, 2026, 2. - Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1898), 388.
- New England Farmer (Boston), January 8, 1830, accessed at www.newspapers.com on
November 6, 2026, 6. - “Friday the 13th”, accessed at https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/friday-the-13th on November 6, 2026.
- Buffalo Courier Express, February 18, 1882, accessed at www.newspapers.com on November 6, 2026, 2.