Joe and Mike:
The spring and summer of 1913 would be the time to start looking for the beginning (laying out) of Seaview. Somebody mentioned Colt went to Seaview around May/June of 1913 because I've seen it. It may've been Tillinghast.
E. Biddle of Philly was Edward Biddle, the Biddle that first married into the Drexel family. His wife Emily Drexel (A.J. Drexel's daughter) was something of a tomboy as well as a fairly accomplished musician and she died quite young under some very odd circumstances. Apparently one of her friends questioned her strength and she proceeded to attempt to lift a grand piano and unfortunately it ended up killing her.
At that point A.J. who really didn't like his son-in-law Edward Biddle told him that no gentleman would try to claim his young wife's wealth and so AJ. cut the guy out of the family but agreed to take his children and take care of them and eventually make them rich. One of those children of Edward and Emily was Anthony Drexel Biddle who was the guy the book, Broadway play and eventually Disney movie "The Happiest Millionaire" was done about. He was quite a guy and a real eccentric. Among other things he taught Heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney how to box.
I don't believe they were golfers but most of the rest of their family certainly was and it would be pretty unusual if Hugh Wilson did not basically know them all. Some of them were the originators of Philly CC and on its first team in the late 1890s----eg Louis , Clarence and Lynnford Biddle. My own grandmother was a Biddle but I can't tell you at the moment which of them was her father. She married a man by the name of A.J. Drexel Paul. His father, James W. Paul, owned Woodcrest (presently Cabrini College) and he owned the land St. Davids GC is on. He was given this land by his father-in-law, A.J. Drexel who essentially created and named the town of Wayne (previously Louella) with his business partner George Childs the publisher of the Philadelphia Ledger.
But to truly understand the development of this entire area, particularly the app 40,000 acre part that has come to be known as the "Main Line" with its land planning, clubs and golf courses one needs to follow the creation and evolution of the Pennsylvania Railroad which through the involvement and financing of various of these people named including the firms of E.W. Clark and J.P. Morgan and Drexel became not only the most powerful railroad in America but apparently at one point the largest capitalization of any corporation in the world.
It's reach and influence was enormous and almost wherever you look in early golf in this area it was there and essentially controlled things in one way or another. I guess one might say it was something of an interwinning monopoly but if one follows its history it's pretty easy to see how it really was a win, win, win, win..... situation for this area and just about everything that went on around here in the world of finance, transportation (it created Montgomery Ave, the Lancaster Pike and the rail lines) mercantilism, industrialism, suburban residential development etc. All in the Pennsylvania Railroad company's own rail lines covered 30,000-40,000 miles and then it began to buy up other American rail companies and "roads". By 1970 it went down the tubes in one of the largest American bankruptcies on record to that time and basically morphed into a governemnt controlled rail complex we now know as Amtrak.