Mike & Joe,
The land that they sold to build the new golf course on may have had an extremely important historical aspect in the game of golf that was unappreciated at the time.
In 1908, Tilly wrote about his very first attempt at golf course design when in the eummer of 1989, after returning from Scotland and spending a good deal of time with Old Tom Morris, he said that, "I was invited to run out to Frankford, a suburb of Philadelphia where at that time golf had yet to be introduced. Selecting the most available ground (which, by the way, is almost on the links of the present Frankford Country Club), I laid out a rather crude course, using for holes, tin cans which had once contained French peas. With a group of curious, skeptical citizens around me I next proceeded to demonstrate the various strokes to the best of my ability until one of the spectators expressed a desire to try his hand at it…"
I have been searching for the exact site where this took place for quite a while now and it could very well be that the on the property of the old Frankford Country Club, which today is the site of Frankford High Scholl and homes, is where Tilly built this first course.
The key clue is that Tilly "was invited" to do this. By whom & why? He had a very good name in golf circles as a player & burgeoning writer already and his trips to Scotland and meetings with the important figures of the game on the other side of the pond would have also elevated his status in the eyes of some. The original 9 hole course of the Belfield CC was also in this neighborhood & both Tilly & his father were members. Yet it also seems likely that he knew a number of the members of the Frankford CC who founded their club just shortly before.
In either case, it seems highly likely that Tilly's first course was right there.