[wsmorrison]

Mike,

Have you looked at other pages in the HD Wilson 1910 manifest to see whether or not the handwriting is confusing?  What if David or Donald on another page had a different looking "D?"  What if Irving or Isaac on another page had an "I" that looked like the "D" in Wilson's name?  While it is probably a "D," it couldn't hurt to look.  In any case, even if it is a "D," you cannot dismiss for certain that it isn't the Hugh Wilson you were searching for.  The conclusion drawn that Wilson did not go overseas prior to construction has not been proven to a sufficient degree to accept.  It is definitely in question but not put to rest one way or the other. 

[Thomas MacWood]

Mike
One assumes the user approaches this with some degree of intelligence. It is widely known Crump travelled with Joseph Baker. You would have to be a complete moron to think that this George A. Crump and Joseph H. Baker travelling back from the UK in 1910 were not the men you were looking for.

Regarding HD Wilson, again one assumes the user will bring some intelligence to the process. The first thing I would do would be to determine what HD was short for. You then would look up the approximate age of HD and his place of birth. You would follow the same process for his wife.

I have complete confidence in you. I have no doubt if you followed these steps you would be able to determine if this is the right man or not. Is this the Hugh Wilson of Merion fame?

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

Just honestly answer this question for me, please.

If Mr. Peters had not accompanied George Crump in 1910, would you have been able to find this manifest using the search engine on Ancestry.Com?


I have another manifest I've asked Wayne to put up here that shows H. Wilson travelling first class from Liverpool in 1910.   He's an American citizen, travelling alone, and arriving in NYC.   That's it for information listed on the manifest.

There is not a single piece of evidence on the manifest that would prove or even suggest that it was not Hugh Wilson of Merion fame.   Nor is there any information to substantiate that it was.

If this were actually his trip, how would one ever know?

My point is that these are very dubious and very incomplete and inaccurate documenation on which to base conjecture.

[wsmorrison]

[TEPaul]

"TE
Whatever you say. Why would you criticize a tool you have never used and know nothing about?"

Mr. MacWood:

That's not the point at all. Post #97 expressed my point--and Mike Cirba's point about the use of ship passenger manifest websites as you seemingly rely on them as an infallable resource connoting certainty that someone was not abroad back in that day. Read it AGAIN!

[Thomas MacWood]

Mike
That is a British manifest you purchased from another site. The British manifests don't appear to be as thorough or complete. You are asking me to reverse engineer my normal process. I don't nornally start with an oddball manifest and then try to figure out the identity of some unkown person. I start with a specific person, with a known date of birth, and birth place, and often the same for the spouse, and sometimes children or parents.

Your H. Wilson is Harold Charles Wilson born 1861 in New South Wales, Australia. The passengers on either side are Anne Riddell of Canada and William Woods of Ireland.

It was not difficult to find Crump. There were only 14 Crumps that arrived in 1910 and two of those were a Mrs and Mr Crump ariving from Italy, and our Crump was not married.

TE
They are a very useful tool. One of many useful sources of information.

[TEPaul]

"TE
They are a very useful tool. One of many useful sources of information."


Mr. MacWood:

I've never had a doubt they are a useful resource tool. But, again, that is not the point I'm making or the point that Mike Cirba has made for a few months now. His point is a most valid one and it goes directly to the issue that one cannot prove someone could not have gone abroad at a particular time simply because they have not been able to find their name on digitalized ship passenger manifest websites. This has nothing to do the usefulness of digitized ship passenger manifest websites as a source of information but it has everything to do with the fact that they are not infallible or even complete regarding ship passengers at any point in time, particularly back around the time we are looking into. The are also seemingly fairly inaccurate even if the passenger happens to be the one looked for.

It would also be useful to know if ship passenger manifest lists applied to commercial and non-commercial (private) ships alike. Either you or David Moriarty may supply an answer to that on here but I believe anyone should legitimately ask either of you if you are simply guessing as to what the true answer is.

[Mike_Cirba]

It was not difficult to find Crump. There were only 14 Crumps that arrived in 1910 and two of those were a Mrs and Mr Crump ariving from Italy, and our Crump was not married.

Tom,

Why don't you mention that the Ancestry.Com search engine recognizes that manifest not as George A. Crump, but as George M. Crump?   

Thus, a search for a Hugh I. Wilson might come up as a Hugh T. Wilson, or any variation.

I've worked with enough handwriting analysis and scanning programs over the years at work to recognize that they are hugely fallible, and not indicative of anything remotely close to 100% accuracy.

[Joe Bausch]

It was not difficult to find Crump. There were only 14 Crumps that arrived in 1910 and two of those were a Mrs and Mr Crump ariving from Italy, and our Crump was not married.

Tom,

Why don't you mention that the Ancestry.Com search engine recognizes that manifest not as George A. Crump, but as George M. Crump?   

Thus, a search for a Hugh I. Wilson might come up as a Hugh T. Wilson, or any variation.

I've worked with enough handwriting analysis and scanning programs over the years at work to recognize that they are hugely fallible, and not indicative of anything remotely close to 100% accuracy.

And they might be particularly Hugh-ly fallible.  Huh-huh.   

[Thomas MacWood]

Mike
The bottom line is Crump and Wilson were not difficult to find.

I think we have proven you can easily overcome an incorrect middle initial. There is enough other information provided enabling you find the person you are looking for....that is if you are relatively intelligent and dilligent. If your goal is to prove the tool is inaccurate in order to preserve a legend its not going to do you much good.

[wsmorrison]

It isn't much of a tool to create a legend either, Tom.

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike
The bottom line is Crump and Wilson were not difficult to find.

I think we have proven you can easily overcome an incorrect middle initial. There is enough other information provided enabling you find the person you are looking for....that is if you are relatively intelligent and dilligent. If your goal is to prove the tool is inaccurate in order to preserve a legend its not going to do you much good.

Tom,

That's disengenous of you.

If Crump's buddy was not on the trip with him you'd be left with a 50 year old George Crump who was a British citizen and whose name is accurate on the manifest but inexplicably comes up with the wrong middle initial in the search engine.

Without his travelling companion's name to cross-reference (which they also got wrong), there is no way on God's green earth for you or anyone else to prove that was our George Crump.   If he had travelled alone, as Hugh Wilson might have, you'd have no way of tracking that at all.

I'll see if Wayne can't post another few manifests from Ancestry.com that shows what you term "enough other information" to provide a positive ID.

[wsmorrison]

[wsmorrison]

[Mike_Cirba]

Thank you, Wayne;

I'd just like to point out all of the corraborating evidence so clearly marked on these Ancestry.Com manifests.

On the first, we find a Hugh I? D? J?  Wilson travelling from Glasgow to NY in 1911.   

Does it have his age?  his gender?   occupation?   final destination??  Last permanent residence???

Nope...we know he's a "U.S. Citizen".



On the second manifest, I'm not really sure what the hell we have because most of it is crossed out.   Damn, those horizontal lines play havoc with scanners and handwriting-to-text programs! 

This Hugh Wilson is coming back on the Lusitania of all ships, but I think it says he's a clergyman!    Of course, it's tough to tell because once again, NO other evidence of who, what, where, when or any additional information is available.

I must not have a smidgeon of intellingence according to Mr. MacWood because I just can't figure out how an expert researcher magically identifies who these folks were.   Why, all the evidence you need is right in front of your nose!   

[Mike_Cirba]

By the way...lest you think that I just picked the worst, most confusing manifests I could find, you should see some of these things! 

These are simply par for the course.

[Thomas MacWood]

Mike
Are you still consumed by the 1910 Wilson trip?

[TEPaul]

"If your goal is to prove the tool is inaccurate in order to preserve a legend its not going to do you much good."

Mr. MacWood:

The accuracy or inaccuracy of ship passenger manifest websites has nothing to do with preserving or not preserving a legend---in this case Hugh Wilson for Merion.

In my opinion, the essay "The Missing Faces of Merion" probably has come close to proving that Wilson may not have gone abroad in 1910 or even before the design and construction of Merion East began, as had been believed for perhaps 30-50 years. I view this as a very much welcome and beneficial discovery on the part of the author of the essay and I dare say Merion does too.

The upshot of additional research done primarily by Wayne Morrison via MCC no doubt inspired by the assumptions and conclusion of the essay "The Missing Faces of Merion" has however reconfirmed that Wilson and his committee did in fact route, design and construct Merion East and West as the club has always contended. Part of that process and history has always included the advice provided to Wilson and his committee by Macdonald and Whigam.

The benefit of Wayne Morrison's additional MCC research is that the history book written by Desmond Tolhurst in 1988 does not appear to have even used the MCC board meeting minutes that now confirm what Tolhurst's Merion history book reported about Wilson and his committee designing Merion East and West.

It is most interesting that one of the premises of the essay "The Missing Faces of Merion" was that Wilson did not go abroad before design and construction began and the inference in the essay was that therefore Wilson (and his committee) was too much the novice to have been able to do it, and the additional inference (or conclusion) was that therefore Macdonald and Whigam must have done it for him and his committee.

That premise and those inferences have been shown to be false by the additional information provided by Wayne Morrison that comes directly from the internal administration of the club at the time of design and construction.

That irrefutable information from within the club at that time (irrefutable unless one believes that MCC's board and committee members in the process of creating a golf course sat there in front of each other at a board of directors meeting and for some odd reason blatantly lied to one another about what they all could see they were in the process of doing  ) confirms that Wilson and his committee did it anyway and without the benefit of a trip abroad in 1910 (that was a story that first appeared perhaps 50 years after the design and construction of Merion East and West and had nothing whatsoever to do with it at that time of design and construction).

That Wilson and his committee routed, designed and constructed Merion East in 1911 and without Wilson going abroad previous to that serves not to undermine the legend of Hugh Wilson as seems to have been the intention of you and the author of the essay but to actually enhance his legend even over what has previously been thought of him (and his committee).

I view this as a truly ironic, and I'm confident others do as well and will continue to in the future! Believe me, no one connected to Merion or part of their research efforts was consumed by the importance of a trip abroad in 1910 regarding who actually designed Merion East, even though you and the author of this essay apparently were.  

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike
Are you still consumed by the 1910 Wilson trip?

Tom,

Nope, are you?

I just think it's a little much for you guys to come here and tell all of us that those messy pieces of paper scanned into a database some 100 years later somehow prove that Hugh Wilson never went abroad before 1912.

Especially when the chief piece of corroborating evidence you cite; the George Crump 1910 trip manifest, is rife with errors and inaccuracies.

Personally, I think Wilson likely went for the first tme in 1912, although I'm only about 65% certain of that and if this highly interpretive and error-prone log is the only evidence presented, I will never feel completely certain he didn't go prior.

[Thomas MacWood]

Mike
Are you having a hard time coming to grips with the fact Wilson's trip was in 1912?

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike
Are you having a hard time coming to grips with the fact Wilson's trip was in 1912?

Tom,

Yes, somewhat, because so many early writers mentioned him going abroad before Merion, but when all is said and done, that's a very small, mostly insignificant matter to the whole story.

The rest of the story is clearly cut and dried, so where I'm having a hard time accepting what might be the truth is pretty minor in comparsion to where you're having a hard time accepting what is most definitely the truth.     

[TEPaul]

MikeC:

I sort of feel like I'm whistling in the wind here because I've said it a few times and noone seems to pay it the slightest attention, but logically if one really looks at this issue of a seven month trip abroad in 1910 by Hugh Wilson in preparation to design Merion East where they should be looking for evidence of that trip abroad it is not only in these ship passenger manifest websites, it's in MCC's own records of that time. If there's no mention of it there one really does have to wonder about it, as God Knows they sure did record most of the rest of the details leading up to and including the design and construction of Merion East and West.

The additional idea I will continue to bring up on here is this notion promoted by a few on here that looking outside a club is the best and most accurate way to determine the accuracy of a club's contemporaneous architectural story. This is patently both illogical and preposterous as looking outside a club for information of the internal interworkings of a club can never reveal what looking within the club at its contemporaneous records can reveal.

If these two on here continue to promote such a preposterous idea on here I will continue to refute it each and every time, and I hope others do as well. This website and its participants deserve a more intelligent approach than something that illogical.

Furthermore, it is pretty apparent why they continue to promote such an illogical method---eg that is the only way they've done it and apparently can do it. It is definitely not the best way to go. The best way is to do both, that's for sure.

[TEPaul]

"Yes, somewhat, because so many early writers mentioned him going abroad before Merion, but when all is said and done, that's a very small, mostly insignificant matter to the whole story."


MikeC:

What 'early' writers mentioned him going abroad before Merion was first designed and constructed? I hope I don't need to point out to anyone again that his brother Alan Wilson did not actually say Hugh went abroad in 1910, even if to some readers it may appear that way, "The land was found in 1910 and as a first step the committee sent Hugh Wilson abroad to study the best courses of Scotland and England."

That might indicate that Hugh went abroad in 1910 but it does not specifically say that, particularly as it was written sixteen years after the fact.

The other oddity is even if a newspaper account in England confirms that Hugh Wilson was over there in 1912 looking at architecture, there is nothing at all from Hugh Wilson or anyone else around Merion at that time that anyone I'm aware of has ever seen saying he was abroad to study architecture.

In that Richard Francis letter to Russell Oakley in May 1912 explaining that Wilson went abroad, all he said was; "Mr. Wilson has taken a hurried trip abroad." He does not mention the purpose of the trip and Hugh Wilson never mentioned the purpose of it to anyone else that I have ever seen, including Oakley who logically one would think he would mention it to if it was about architecture or agronomy, as at that point they'd already had a correspondence of over 100 letters on the subject.

[TEPaul]

Mr. MacWood:

Would you not agree that if in fact Wilson did not go abroad before Merion East was first designed and constructed and if in fact Wilson and his committee did design Merion East as the club history has indicated and the long reposing MCC contemporaneous Board meeting minutes reconfirm with just a few days of advice from Macdonald and Whigam, that his so-called "legend" should very much be enhanced from here on rather than questioned or minimized? 

It has never been our goal to enhance Hugh Wilson's life and times in golf course architecture or to preserve his "legend", as you say we are. It has only been our goal to understand the details of his life and times in golf and architecture and golf agronomy because one can hardly deny it was a pretty unique and impactful life and times in those things. If his contemporaries in architecture had not praised him the way they did and if they had not mentioned what they felt his contributions had been to both them and to golf architecture and golf agronomy one might begin to at least wonder but the fact is they are the ones who saw him through all this and they said what they did about him for good reason apparently.

[DMoriarty]

Wayne and Mike, are you guys really back to discussing the manifests?   

As I said in my IMO, we don't need the manifests to figure out the timing of the trip.  WILSON TOLD US THAT HE TRAVELED ABROAD TO STUDY GOLF COURSES AFTER THE NGLA TRIP.   Wayne now knows when the NGLA trip occurred, and he knows that I know when it occurred.  So we both know that there was no time for Wilson to have traveled abroad to study golf courses between the NGLA trip and the (now) well-documented study trip in 1912.

I just cannot understand why you guys continue to insist on ignoring Hugh I Wilson.
__________________________________________

But back to the thread . . .

Wayne, I am confused about a few things. 

1. Early in the thread you stated that Peters was not involved in any design work with Flynn.  Later you state that Peters was involved with Flynn in some unknown capacity.   Could you clarify?   
 -  Are you saying he was not involved with design work, but was involved in some other capacity? 
 -  Or are you now saying that you do not know whether Peters was involved in the design work? 
-   If you are still denying that Peters was involved in design work, what is your basis for doing so?   

2.  You wrote, "That 1979 letter mentioned a course her father built for Wm Plunkett in Heartwellville, VT."    Is this the basis for you concluding that Flynn designed this course?   
-  Why would you equate building a course with designing it? 
-  Is there any other evidence that Flynn actually designed the course?  Or is there only the mention that he built it?

___________________________________________________________

In the end, your protege is responsible for getting the history nearly all WRONG.  Promote his work if you like, but that sort of rewriting we can all do without.

Wayne, you continue to take shots at my essay without any basis whatsoever.   As you know, my essay was on the money in all the crucial points:  Wilson did did not travel overseas to study architecture before Merion East was designed; he was a rank novice who had no idea to lay out and design a fundamentally sophisticated golf course such as the original Merion East.   M&W were not only involved in the design process from before the land was purchased until construction began, they were the driving creative forces behind the design of the course and ultimately determined the lay out. etc.   As for the unsupported claim of 5 proposed layouts, I have a very good idea of how and when those came into being.     

But how about we put all this behind us?  Let me update my essay with the more complete record and we can get on to Part II.   Part II is where the real fun will begin anyway.

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