Press Accounts of early Merion

[Sean_A]

Patrick,

Have you looked at those manifests?   

To say they are incomplete, error-prone, subject to handwriting vagaries and interpretation, inconsistent, and crossed out, written over, and omitting private travel just begins to hint at their problems as documentation on which to build an argument.

If David's new theory is based on real evidence, then it should hold water, and stay afloat despite our counters, so to speak. 

These manifests are dead weight.

Mike, you keep harping on those manifests being crap, but I'm here to tell you that in any criminal court in the country (I use criminal court because it's got the most exacting standards for evidence in existence, all designed to protect a defendant that is presumed innocent), those logs - being contemporaneous records made in the ordinary course of business - would be admissible as evidence to show when someone took a trip.  Most all of the subsequent reporters' accounts, being hearsay drivel  , would not -- unless, of course, the author was still alive.   

Dems da facts....

Ah, but Shivas, the goal here is to discover the truth or the best approximation we can come up with.  A lawyer's job is to represent their client - the truth may or may not come out.  The evidence should be examined for what it is and what it is not.  Context and extraneous evidence helps make sense of it all.  If there are mistakes/omissions/deletion in the official record, it doesn't matter if that the record is meant to be accurate.  If it ain't accurate then doubt is raised. 

Ciao 

[TEPaul]

Shivas and DavidM:

I hear exactly what you say about evidence and such, particularly in a court of law.

But what we have before us here for discussion is not some case about the degrees of reliablity of newspaper accounts or ship manifests in and of themselves.

Whether you guys want to admit it or not all these threads are really about the accuracy of the architectural record of Merion's courses, not about just manifests and newspaper accounts.

You guys just keep avoiding that or just sloughing it off or dismissing it. Why are you doing that? Where do you think you're going here by constantly talking about manifest and newspapers? What's the real point here?

Get back to the subject even if it's in the context of newspapers and ship manifests. The question is do you believe that just because a ship manifest has not turned up yet for a Wilson trip abroad before 1912 that can then conclusively determine that he could not have made a trip previous to 1912 for Merion? Just do us all a favor and answer that with a yes or no, at least to start with. 

And furthermore, get back to the point that if he did not go previous to 1912 should that make some relevant difference as to what the Merion reports of the Wilson gave as to who created Merion, when and how? Just answer that yes or no and at least we can get back on track with the real subject of these threads.

That is the point of all this, isn't it?

[Sean_A]

This has nothing to do with the lawyer's job.  We're talking about the judge's job in terms of the rules of evidence.  If anything, the rules of evidence are designed to prevent questionable evidence from being admitted into a case, so as not to sway the court (ie, judge and jury) from reaching truth.  The rules of evidence are all about protecting truth from basically bullshit evidence being admitted.

Shivas

Rules of evidence?  Judges?  This is meant to be a cooperative not adversarial endeavor. Unfortunately, this concept got lost somewhere in the translation.   All the evidence should be presented.  The judges are each and every reader.  I am happy to read any researcher's conclusions, but to draw my own conclusions I need the evidence. 

Ciao

[Paul Stephenson]

Truly, that wouldn't be much of a stretch to believe he wasn't just sketching all the time.  How could a real golfer not play all those great courses.  Also, many clubs had a guest book; did they not? 

I think we on GCA.com should take up a collection and in the same manner Merion reportedly sent Hugh, we should send Cirba, Paul, and Moriarty on a tour to scour the old papers and guest books, and to be economical, make them share the same rooming accomodations.  6 months ought to do it! 

A quick e-mail to The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers netted me this info:

"Dear Mr Stephenson,

Thank you for your enquiry and yes visitors are asked to sign a book
prior to playing the course.  However the ledgers are not kept any
longer than 5 years.  As a consequence we won't have any records of
early 1900's unless the person you're trying to trace came with a Member
and didn't play golf.  There is another book kept in the clubhouse for
such a purpose and goes back to 1901."

Another query regarding a Hugh Wilson from Philadelphia got me this:

"I’ve had a look at the book and there are a few Wilsons there but none from Philadelphia.  Wilson is a Scottish name and most of them are from Scotland with one from London but none of them have the first name of Hugh.  All the entries date from 1920 until 1901.  As I explained this is the book that was signed by members who had guests who did not  play the course.   

Perhaps your Wilson originally came from Scotland – if you have any more info I’m happy to have another look for you."

So somewhat of a dead end when it comes to Muirfield.  I guess my point is we don't need to spends thousands of dollars sending the 3 amigos to Scotland.  Just give them $19.99 each for an internet account.

I've sent e-mails to Prestwick and North Berwick.  I'll let you know what I find...or don't find.

I just fail to see how this info fits into the big picture?

[Mike_Cirba]

Paul,

I think that's a really neat idea.

I would think Muirfield might not have been as highly regarded in 1910 as it is today, however.

If I were to look, I'd start with Stoke Poges and Walton Heath.  Perhaps Sunningdale, as well, although I think someone is looking into that and they don't have an archivist.

Thanks for the update!

[Mike_Cirba]

Fellows,

I've come to wholly reconsider my position.  More later...   

[RJ_Daley]

Paul, thank you.  I think it is wonderful you made this effort.  It is a good start, IMHO.  I must say, as to you wondering how this fits into the big picture, that it would be significant to fix Mr Hugh Wilson at any of these historic locales, at any time, no matter what the date or place.  If the date fits most comfortably with those that believe HIW did in deed go and spend time studying these course as a precursor to then applying his new studies to Merion, that is great.  If it shows that HIW spent time at courses that are somewhat escew of the dates hoped for, it still means he was there.  The only downside, is if we find NO evidence that HIW was anywhere in GB and Scotland, ever....  Then we are back to square one, with no proof he was there, and nothing to totally refute that he was not. 

I really think the other types of supporting documents as supporting evidence to fix HIW's attendence at critical times, hasn't even been scratched. 

One side note about all this; we and most specifically the contestants in this controversy have elevated the whereabouts of HIW, and chronicalling his movements and activities to create or oversee the creation of Merion golf course to almost the status of researching an  historical review of the circumstances that influenced a President.  I would think that 99.9% of the population out there might find this whole laborious process and calling these questions as.... odd. 

Yes, we old obscure GCA afficianados would like to know the true origins of these stories.  But, it really should never have risen to the level of emotion that has been displayed.  Humor, collegeal friendly competitions over sources and theories, and collaborative effort should have been made use of in these inquiries and debates.  But, the emotional aspects were really unnecessary, IMHO.  Efforts such as Paul has just made are really the way to go, I believe.

[TEPaul]

"The only downside, is if we find NO evidence that HIW was anywhere in GB and Scotland, ever....  Then we are back to square one, with no proof he was there, and nothing to totally refute that he was not."

RJ:

That's fine by me, and I'm sure it's fine with the Philadelphians or anyone else who are searching for evidence of Wilson abroad studying architecture for Merion.

But before these discussions keep going too far I sure would like everybody seriously discussing this subject to agree in some way what constitutes ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE that Hugh Wilson was abroad studying architecture for Merion.

Ship manifests and such are fine as a search source of evidence he was abroad studying architecture but a ship manifest merely proves he went abroad and not what he did abroad such as studying architecture.

Logs from golf clubs abroad that put Wilson at those golf courses are much more indicative of what he was doing abroard than ship manifests certainly.

But other pieces of evidence that have been introduced long ago that are really supportable evidence are the reports of Alan Wilson that states Hugh  went abroad to study architecture and Hugh Wilson's OWN report stating he went to Scotland and England to study architecture. However, neither report is crystal clear as to when he did that. Alan's mentions he went abroad 'as a first step' and Hugh's report merely says 'later' following the making of a particular point (the visit to NGLA).But both reports state he DID go abroad to study architecture and Hugh's says Scotland and England.

I don't know about you but if anyone seriously discussing this subject is NOT willing to take the word of Alan and certainly Hugh himself as ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE that he DID go abroad to study architecture, I, for one, am no longer willing to take part in these discussion on Wilson and Merion.

Both those reports were made completely public and if anyone actually thinks that reports like that could be made public to an entire membership of hundreds of people and others from the town that knew Wilson and Merion and be a total fabrication then I think this discussion has been reduced to the totally ABSURD!

In my opinion, that best evidence we have in these threads that Wilson actually did, At SOME POINT, go abroad to study architecture for Merion comes from Hugh Wilson HIMSELF!

[TEPaul]

RJ:

Another piece of evidence that has been offered on here long ago but not much considered is a letter from Harry Colt to Hugh Wilson in 1923.

In that letter Colt is asking Wilson to please send him a copy of the USGA Green Section Bulletin (or the Bulletin for the percusor to the USGA Green Section).

In that letter Colt mentions that they haven't seen one another in so long he hopes he remembers him and he also mentions that he has moved his residence and that he believes Hugh would very much enjoy the land around his new residence (or something like as much as his former residence). We will make the exact wording of that letter available in a little while.

As far as I'm concerned that also is practically irrefutable evidence that Hugh Wilson WAS in Europe studying architecture AT SOME POINT. The obvious implication is why in the world would Colt be mentioning his residences to Wilson if he HAD NEVER SEEN the first one???

Furthermore, even if it's a long shot simply because Colt probably was in England between about March 5 and about May 16 1912 when we know that Hugh Wilson WAS abroad----IF in fact, someone could conclusively prove that COLT WAS NOT in England or Scotland between those dates, then, in my opinion, THAT would conclusively PROVE that Hugh Wilson was abroad studying architecture at ANOTHER time than 1912.

The only possible time to conclude he could have been abroad studying architecture for Merion due to all the timelining of the agronomy letters for practically the rest of Wilson's life would essentially be 1910!

[Paul Stephenson]

Received word from North Berwick.

They donated most of their minutae and guest books to The National Library in 1997.

A quick search shows that there is quite a lot of information that can be easily accessed and looked through, if you live in Edinburgh.  Looks like the 3 amigos trip is on again.  Incidentally if you look there is no Visitor's Guest Book for the years 1905-1951.  Someone doesn't want this to be easily resolved.  There is an Attendants' Guest Book covering the years in question but I'm not sure what information that provides.

The link to the inventories is here: http://www.nls.uk/catalogues/online/cnmi/inventories/acc11578.pdf

The person at Muirfield let me know that there are no entries at all for 1910.  The only Americans she found from 1901 to 1920 were 3 people playing in The Amatuer Championship:

There are 3 gentlemen signed in twice on 26 and 29th May 1909 for the The Amateur Golf Championship

 J D Pelton  / W Watson and E C Carter all from New York and signed in by W Herbert Fowler   ( wonder who they were)

Me too.  I'm pretty sure who W Herbert Fowler was, but I wonder if W Watson wasn't William Watson of Olympia Fields fame.



TEPaul,

I am willing to take Wilson at his word.  I just enjoy the research.  Besides, I have no real interest in this debate and will simply report what I find, even if it's nothing. 

[Paul Stephenson]

Received word back from the Archivist at Prestwick:

Re your email requesting information on Hugh Wilson, I have checked back our “Strangers” book for 1910 to 1912 when he was in the UK, and there is no entry for him.

He could possibly have walked the course without playing.

Sorry I can’t be of more help.

Regards

Still waiting on R&A who I don't think will respond, but I didn't think I'd get anything from Prestwick by now either.
 

[wsmorrison]

I'm working on Sunningdale, a very likely candidate.  In fact, I'll be there in about a month as well as a few other courses where I wlll investigate their guest books, but I'm really there to play and study the courses.

[Paul Stephenson]

For the sake of future reasearch Wayne, please sign their Guest Book

[wsmorrison]

For future researchers as yet unborn, I usually sign in with an alias.  Moe Howard is the one I use the most 

[Joe Bausch]

For future researchers as yet unborn, I usually sign in with an alias.  Moe Howard is the one I use the most 

Funny, I usually use Larry Fine.  I hope Mark is okay with that.