JES:
Regarding post #172, if anyone is going to put together a reliable timeline of events on the creation of Merion East that has any real significance to a more accurate understanding of the creation history of Merion East they'll need to use all the available timeline elements, and that is something I don't see David Moriarty doing. His timelines and their elements and events seem to be designed for one purpose only and that is simply to promote at all costs his seemingly preposterous hypothesis that somehow M&W have been shafted regarding the credit they deserve on the creation of Merion.
Just to prove to you what I mean by that, at this point, and frankly throughout these Merion threads of his he cannot point to anything that any of us have said about the advice and involvement of M&W with Merion East that would in any way minimize, discount or denegrate their involvement as it is supported by the historical record that we are all dealing with here. Perhaps he thinks it's just a matter of interpretation but after-all none of us here have ever said we are denying that M&W did offer some advice at some point and that they did have at least three visits both at NGLA and in Philadelphia with Wilson and the Merion Construction Committee. We've never disputed any of that, and we've been aware of all of it long before David Moriarty came along on this subject.
We have always used the very same historical record of written documentation and events that he has only we've had so much more of it than he had. Almost all the relevent material that he did not have that he has now came from us. Of course his interpretations of the historical record are not ours but that is completely beside the point as to the actual sum and substance of the Merion historical record. Again, if the only issue in all of this is only exactly how to interpret the mention of M&W's advice and involvement, then, in our opinion, that has always been a pretty small point given all the available information on who else was responsible for the laying out, design and construction of Merion East.
We, and others have asked David Moriarty a number of times if he believes that in some way this could be used to construe that M&W may've actually been responsible for the laying out (routing), design and construction of Merion East, or at least a good deal more of it than the Merion record has ever implied, and in each case he has said no. So, if that's true, then who was it that was the architect and who was it that laid out, designed and constructed Merion East? Logically, it was in the main the very same people the record has always showed did it and the ones we maintain did it in the main.
So, if that's the case, what is all this about anyway???
I'll give you a good example here of some of the areas in this evidence that may be useful to look into more carefully;
David Moriarty did find that 1912 manifest of Wilson traveling to Europe that none of us have ever been aware of. That was an excellent find and it is a most interesting find and could lend some investigative help in determing whether or not that really was Wilson's first trip abroad for Merion or his second or perhaps one of many.
On that 1912 manifest is a potentially interesting piece of information and that is that it says he was apparently traveling alone---eg it says he's traveling as "a single". This is something no one seems interested in looking into, and seemingly to date certainly not David Moriarty despite me mentioning it to him a few times on these threads.
Why is that potentially interesting in all this?
In my opinion, it is if one compares it to that letter Colt wrote (which I posted on here) to Wilson in the early 1920s asking, among other things, that Wilson give his wife Mrs Colt's best.
The question is where would Mrs Colt and Mrs Wilson have met each other?
Did Mrs Colt travel to America with Harry on any of his apparently two to three trips over here? If so, then they may've met over here, and this bit of potentially interesting information would logically cease to be interesting or determinative in this subject's questions.
But if Mrs Colt never did travel to America with Harry then that would pretty much mean that Mrs Wilson and Mrs Colt met each other in GB at some point and logically at the Colt home in or around Sunningdale.
The next quesiton would be when? We know Harry mentioned in that letter that he and Wilson had not seen each other in years.
So perhaps the trip that Mrs Wilson met Mrs Colt was one that preceded the creation of Merion East. If so that's proof that Wilson did go to GB before Merion East, and obviously to study golf architecture if he was visiting with Harry Colt in England, in the Heathlands and at Sunningdale.
Not to mention the fact that Colt mentioned in that letter that he and Mrs Colt had moved to the village of Old Berkshire and that he felt Hugh would very much appreciate seeing that.
Why would Colt mention that he and Mrs Colt had moved their residence if Wilson had never been to their home in England in the first place? Would you tell someone years later you'd moved if they'd never been to your residence in the first place?
I've mentioned all this before but David Moriarty failed each time to even acknowledge it. Why is that if he really wants to investigate Hugh Wilson's trip or trips abroad?
Running a seemingly trivial bit of information like this to ground just could be the single element that could establish one of the most important timeline elements of all in this entire saga.