Merion's Early Timeline

[Mike_Cirba]

For anyone who asked why Richard Francis rode his bicyle the one mile to Lloyd's house at midnight instead of riding to Hugh Wilson's house six miles away and see that as some evidence that Wilson wasn't responsible, I find it very telling that none of you even seriously entertained or considered that Francis should have first contacted the actual supposed designer, Charles B. Macdonald.   I guess deep down you guys aren't really buying it either. 

Didn't Macdonald have a phone?   

But let's continue to assume that Francis and Lloyd were simply following Macdonald's bidding and helping to lay out Macdonald's course on the ground and it's before November 1910.   

Francis stated that they had no trouble laying out the first 13 holes (which are all south of the clubhouse) and needed to try and figure out how to fit in the final five holes in the remaining property they had originally purchased.

We also know from Francis that the land they eventually traded that was to become real estate "was not part of ANY golf layout", being considered, so we know it's not part of the existing course.

They had now laid out the first four holes of the back nine, and had already used up one of their par threes on the 13th behind the clubhouse.   Given their desires to create a championship course, surely they wanted a strong finish.

In fact, in his July 1910  letter to Mr. Lloyd, CB Macdonald talked about utilizing the quarry as well as the limitations of the acreage;

Dear Mr. Lloyd:

Mr. Whigham and I discussed the various merits of the land you propose buying, and we think it has some very desirable features. The quarry and the brooks can be made much of. What it lacks in abrupt mounds can be largely rectified....

The most difficult problem you have to contend with is to get in eighteen holes that will be first class in the acreage you propose buying.  So far as we can judge, without a contour map before us, we are of the opinion that it can be done, provided you get a little more land near where you propose making your Club House.  The opinon that a long course is always the best course has been exploded.  A 6000 yd. course can be made really first class, and to my mind it is more desirable than a 6300 or a 6400 yd. course, particularly where the roll of the ball will not be long, because you cannot help with the soil you have on that property having heavy turf.  Of course it would be very fast when the summer baked it well.

The following is my idea of a  6000 yard course:

One 130 yard hole
One 160    "
One 190    "
One 220 yard to 240 yard hole,
One 500 yard hole,
Six 300 to 340 yard holes,
Five 360 to 420    "
Two 440 to 480    "


So, we know that Macdonad thought they could probably do quite a bit with the quarry as a hazard.

So, I have to ask, if David's theory is correct that they had to swap for the entire land of the triangle, the obvious question is why did they buy so little land around the quarry in the first place?

Other than the land owned by Haverford College, they had option on land as far north as College Avenue.

Why would they have stopped far short, just a scant SIXTY FIVE YARDS beyond the quarry!?!?    

This admittedly "confusing" map does have the benefit of being able to point out the absurdity of what has been proposed, however;




The areas encircle in red shows the area of the first 13 original holes that Francis tells us that had not much problem locating.

I've removed the top triangle because David tells us that NONE of this land was in their control yet.

Any other land they might have owned is not indicated because Francis tells us it wasn't on any of their proposed layouts.

The yellow highlighted area is the large quarry, unplayable for golf.

The orange line is an admittedly crude and slightly too far eastward attempt to delineate the original property line.

But, the area of focus is what I've highlighted in BLUE.   To believe David's theory, one has to accept that both Macdonald and Whigham and the Merion Committee had first recommended they only buy this short-sighted parcel of property and now all were engaged in an exercise in futility by trying to get the FINAL FIVE HOLES of their championship course into this area,  and had already used up one of their back nine par threes on the 13th.

What's worse, they had somehow already conceived of some abomination of a golf course layout where the FINAL FIVE HOLES were somehow squeezed into this area!!

As an exercise, I would ask anyone out there, including professional architects playing at home, to try to design a final five holes using only one par three in this acreage.

I'd also like someone, perhaps Bryan Izatt who seems to know how to capture better screen shots from Google Earth than I do, to provide a better map to work from, and then can also probably calculate total usable acreage around that quarry.

Remember also that the final 5 today makes up a daunting, lengthy finish befitting a championship course, so please use that as a guideline in what you create.

Finally...

I have to ask...

Why is it that Richard Francis never mentioned Charles Macdonald or HJ Whigham, or gave them any credit at all for their design?   

Why didn't he pick up the phone and call Macdonald "The Designer", as David sarcastically referred to Hugh Wilson last night when in fact Lloyd owned the land and I'm sure Francis knew he'd need to get approval from.

What do we know Francis said about the design attribution of Merion East?  We know he never mentioned CB Macdonald in any recorded account.

Well, besides his 1950 verbal record, we do have two other sources who spoke to Francis and were there at the time;

"On his return the plan was gradually evolved and while largely helped by many excellent suggestions and much good advice from the other members of the Committee, they have each told me that he is the person in the main responsible for the ARCHITECTURE of this and the West Course. - Alan Wilson 1926

"Mr Wilson has spent many hours of careful study, and has devoted every moment of his spare time in laying out and constructing this course.  He has been ably assisted by the members of the Committee, but there is no one who has devoted the time and energy and real hard work on it that he has. - H.P Baily letter to Merion proposing special gift to Wilson 1913

[TEPaul]

"It's said that Francis "was looking at a map of the property one night when I had an idea."  What map do you suppose he was looking at?  The 11-15-10 one?  Do you suppose he was drawing fairway corridors, greens and tees on it?  How do you suppose he knew that they needed some additional sliver of land up there?"


Bryan:

Do you really want accurate answers to those questions? If you do I'll put them on here step by step one more time addressing any point in time with those boundaries and their adjustments over time and why.

If you want to do it with me that's fine but I'm not even going to respond anymore to some of these people on here like Moriarty who continues to distort everything we say and use. I don't even want to read crap like photogrpaphic distortions or whatever anymore. I'm not using photographs as you are and he is and most everyone else on this thread seems to be; I have all the original material and all of it is completely in scale from professional surveyors. I have the deeds, their metes and bounds and I can even find some of their demarcation points on the ground from the metes and bounds on those deeds with what we here in Pennsylvania real estate call "monuments" (small square stone pillars in the ground). Yesterday I found the exact on the ground dimenions of about ten different points along the entire run of Golf House Road and I can compare any of them accurately to the same points along the entire run of that proposed Road on the Nov. 15, 1910 land plan map.

I don't want to hear any rationalization that these professional surveys and surveyors are wrong or inaccurate either. They just aren't---they are absolutely exact to the yard and they also match up with their dimensional lot counterparts on the other side of the road. Matter of fact if need be I could take the exact boundary lines on the entire survey of the property right back to Yerkes & Co. who did it years ago. They are still very much in business and when I did real estate we used them all the time.

But the deal here is not to go through measuring excercises on our computer on the other side of the country, the real deal of this thread is to accurately determine WHEN that land was bought and when that Francis Land Swap happened or more appropriately to this particular thread AT WHAT POINT (Date) it simply could NOT HAVE happened BEFORE.

That last statement is the entire key to this thread and I have all the accurate information. Yesterday or the day before I even put on here Thompson's actual resolution to the board on 4/19/11 that formally accepted Francis's land swap (the wording of that Thompson resolution is incredibly significant) and not a single person on here even picked up on it or seems to understand the complete significance of it to the subject of this very thread----eg the Timeline involving the so called Francis land swap and idea.

For starters, what do you make of that last point, Bryan? If you're interested in going through it with me step by step, that's fine, but if you just want to continue to go through inaccurate Google Earth or Mapquest excerises on your computer and discussions and arguments about that, that's cool too but not with me and not if you're looking for some really accurate information here.

[Mike_Cirba]

Bryan,

Tom's correct, and he has the source material.   But David has created such a confusing morass of information I'm not sure that everyone is getting it.

And Tom's correct that if you need any exact dimensions and timeines he has that as well

However,  if you'd still like to prove it visually for yourself, and for everyone else here, I believe I can help with the question you asked re: the original eastward boundary on this photo;




Today's eastward boundary is marked by stakes underneath the trees on the right.

You simply need to go to the base of the triangle and pace off 25 yards from the east to find the original propertly line, and then run it dead straight.

You can tell you've done it correctly and in the right spot if that leaves you with 130 yards to the INSIDE of the road, not the middle of the road.

That should give you the proper dimensions to use in your overlay, and your much clearer lines available with Google Earth will show the exact overlap of land.   

I think it will also be illustrative to try and continue that further down, as well, because it's obvious that all of the 14th green and the original 15th tee, etc. all fall outside the original property line, as well.

Thanks for your help.

p.s....there's no way that the original property line gets to 100 yards wide.   I think it's closer to 90 yards, but for our discussion purposes I think we should just settle on 95.   Agreed?

[JESII]

Sorry Tom...

When a professional surveyor uses the term "APPROXIMATE LOCATION OF ROAD", is it understood that some points along the road are fixed and accurate?

Also, when CBM suggests the potential quality of the course is tied to "provided you get a little more land near ...the clubhouse..."; when did Merion acquire that land down there behind the clubhouse?

[Mike_Cirba]

Sorry Tom...

When a professional surveyor uses the term "APPROXIMATE LOCATION OF ROAD", is it understood that some points along the road are fixed and accurate?

Sully,

Then why accurately survey it at all, or draw it to scale, or send it to the members as a legal sales sheet.

Why indicate to the foot what land was for Haverford Development Company and what land was designated for the Merion Golf Course?

They would have been possibly setting themselves up for charges of fraud had it not been accurately depicted because the total property was not yet under the control of Lloyd and Merion

The word Approximate was used because;

1) No road yet existed

2) It was understood by Lloyd and the club that after they controlled the property in total, they could move the shaping of this line as necessary to route the golf course.

It was the ONLY soft boundary they had to play with in terms of laying out their future golf course.

Make sense?

[JESII]

I thought it was understood that LLoyd capitalized, or re-capitalized HDC...is that accurate? When do we think that occurred?

My question was only about the West boundary.

[Mike_Cirba]

Sully,

If my understanding is correct, I believe Lloyd got control of that land Dec 19th 1910.

Tom has the specifics.

[JESII]

Mike,

Legal control, yes!

How about his ability to speak for HDC?

I know it's in one of these 4,968,344,029 posts, but I am unable to find it on a quike purview...

[DMoriarty]

Bryan,  thanks for the overlay. 

The eastern boundary then is difficult to determine based on what we see now.   In 1928 Merion expanded east starting from just below the then existing tee at a south east angle, taking 80 feet of property at the widest point.  But they also gave up land east of the then existing tees and behind the tees.    So the border was effectively rotated around a point that was about even with the front of the tee as it existed then, with Merion gaining some ground in front of that point and losing some ground behind it.  Plus they gave up some additional ground behind the tee.  I think Merion may have gained back some of the ground behind the tee since then.   

Note that prior to 1928 the east edge of tees appear to have been set well west of the property line, probably 10 or 15 yards.   So there was apparently ample room to fit in the 15th green and the 16th tee, by the standards of safety as existed then.    But is by no means certain that the east edge of the tees is the same as today as it was then.   

One side note,  when I lined up the 1910 drawing with the RR atlases, I don't get a perfect fit.   I can get a number of preexisting mutual points to line up, but as you can see on my overlay, the west border of the Haverford College property is not a perfect overlay.   

______________________________________


TEPaul,

Instead of browbeating Bryan and anyone else who dares question you, why don't you just provide the facts that you say establish your case?    For example, that Cuyler's letter supposedly says something about the state of the land deals as of Dec. 19, 1910.   Knowing more about that may clear a lot of this up.   

Why do I have a feeling that a few people have received some upset phone calls this morning?

[Mike_Cirba]

Bryan,  thanks for the overlay. 

The eastern boundary then is difficult to determine based on what we see now.   In 1928 Merion expanded east starting from just below the then existing tee at a south east angle, taking 80 feet of property at the widest point.  But they also gave up land east of the then existing tees and behind the tees.    So the border was effectively rotated around a point that was about even with the front of the tee as it existed then, with Merion gaining some ground in front of that point and losing some ground behind it.  Plus they gave up some additional ground behind the tee.  I think Merion may have gained back some of the ground behind the tee since then.   

Note that prior to 1928 the east edge of tees appear to have been set well west of the property line, probably 10 or 15 yards.   So there was apparently ample room to fit in the 15th green and the 16th tee, by the standards of safety as existed then.    But is by no means certain that the east edge of the tees is the same as today as it was then.   

One side note,  when I lined up the 1910 drawing with the RR atlases, I don't get a perfect fit.   I can get a number of preexisting mutual points to line up, but as you can see on my overlay, the west border of the Haverford College property is not a perfect overlay.   

______________________________________

Brian,

Once again, we have smoke, mirrors, and obfuscation.

You can find the exact original property line by doing exactly what i described above.

David wants to confuse the issue once again for everyone lest your overlay show exactly and once and for all how much of the golf course did not fit into the original property lines drawn on the 1910 map.

He also has avoided every single direct question I've posed to him or to the group since this thread started.

He is wrong, and dead wrong, and he also realizes it.

He will just never, ever, ever admit it.

[TEPaul]

"How about his ability to speak for HDC?"



Sully:

We're 99% sure that was total when the Francis idea got run by him. Certainly from Francis's interesting story it looks like Lloyd made that decision on the spot in the middle of the night without even needing to speak with anyone else from HDC. It looks like he controlled HDC with either his MCC syndicate (they were referred to by MCC as "The Guarantors" ) and others or he may've taken control of HDC from Connell and Nickolson (and the original HDC stockholders) by recapitalizing HDC, probably via Drexel & Co or Morgan. If one looks at who bought out a lot of the development lots one can't help notice the multiple lots in the name of Charles F. Schribener. He was the private secretary of E.T. Stottesbury who was close to being the managing partner of Drexel & Co. Lloyd was a partner of Drexel & Co.

Matter of fact, I've been told by Morgan and Drexel's biographer that the partnerships of Drexel and Morgan had been basically interchangeable in the past and may've still been to some degree at that time (1910 and 1911). If anyone on here doesn't understand what the finance companies like Drexel and Morgan and others were like back then, they need to consider that from around 1827 until 1913 (the exact dates of J.P. Morgan's life actually) the United States did not have a central bank. That's where those private finance companies like that filled the bill. They took razor thin percentages but what-all they controlled by their ability to easily underwrite and manage massive stock underwriting and offerings for just about everything and anything that made good business sense to them was absolutely out of sight. This was near the end of that long era known as "The Age of the TRUSTS" (they were completely philosophically opposed to competition, particularly of the massive national industries like railroads, coal, utilities, shipping etc) and in that world at that time a guy like Lloyd was huge. He wasn't as huge as his fellow partner J.P. Morgan but he was huge nonetheless. Morgan may've been the largest and/or most powerful financier when it came to over-all control in American history, if not the world. We're talking the type of financial power the Rothchilds of Europe had at a particular time.

[TEPaul]

"Sorry Tom...

When a professional surveyor uses the term "APPROXIMATE LOCATION OF ROAD", is it understood that some points along the road are fixed and accurate?"


Sully:

Good question, at least for this board with this particular subject. That road that was yet to be built that said "approximate location of road" actually did perfectly delineate the expected property to eventual go to the MCC Golf Association COMPANY of 117 acres. That is what is important to understand for us with this particular subject of the Francis Land Swap.

[TEPaul]

"They would have been possibly setting themselves up for charges of fraud had it not been accurately depicted because the total property was not yet under the control of Lloyd and Merion."


Mike Cirba:

You've got that right. These kinds of real estate deeds are very accurate because they just have to be. Sometimes bordering property owners can get into hassles that involve just a few feet not even yards and these surveys that are the raw material delineations of land deeds and titles have to reflect and resolve these things, otherwise mortgage problems and lawsuits and such can occur.

Who on here has ever really studied the metes and bounds of a property deed or title? They are sometimes pages of a jumble of directional degrees and linear feet from known points to other known points and such (often the aforementioned stone "monuments" still in the ground, and yes right into the middle of public roads----eg public roads have been granted dedicated "easements" off original owner property previous to a road).

Pennsylvania has a system called "fee simple" which I think most states use but not all. In Pennsylvania (Massachusetts for one is different), particularly in this area reading some of these deeds is pretty cool because they reflect not just the boundary lines of the last seller to a buyer but the property owners of a specific property going all the way back to when the land was first professionally surveyed and here in Pennsylvania in this area a ton of the title runs on actual and current deeds go all the way back to William Penn!

[TEPaul]

"It was the ONLY soft boundary they had to play with in terms of laying out their future golf course."


Mike Cirba:

Not exactly. Lloyd bought the entire Johnson Farm (140 acres) and he obviously bought the Dallas Estate too. On Dec. 19, 1910 he took 161 acres into his own and his wife's name (the 140 acre Johnson Farm and the 21 acre Dallas estate). There was a piece of the Johnson Farm across Ardmore Ave from what is now the second half of the 2nd hole of twenty something acreas (actually a very narrow band of it connected that rectangular portion with the top of the L).

The miniscule detail this thread has gotten into on land and land measurements is absolutely staggering to me. What's the point of all this really? The only thing that really matters is when that Francis land swap idea happened or at what specific date it could basically NOT HAVE HAPPENED BEFORE?

I think it's just so funny that the information that essentially proves that is now on here but apparently noone has noticed it yet. Is anyone a good enough commonsense analyzer to find it on here and start to anaylze its significance?

[DMoriarty]

Bryan,

I attempted to answer your question. I hope I did.   If not, I'd be glad to try again.

______________________________________________

Jim Sullivan,


My understanding of the various relationships between Lloyd, MCC, MCCGA, what he calls MCCGA Company, and HDC are very different than TEPaul's.   In fact some of his claims are demonstrably false, by his own documents no less.    But there is no use me explaining it;

1) I don't have access to the materia that they are misreading,

2) If I did explain it they'd deny it and send more insults my way, and

3) once I finally convinced them they would either claim they were the ones who figured it all out, or claim they had it right all along.  

Anyway, it would serve you well to take TEPaul's interpretations of these land deals with a grain of salt.   With all due respect to him and his friends on Golf Hourse Road, he has been very wrong with these interpretations in the past, and surely is this time as well.

Also, TEPaul's description of "what you need to know" about the "APPROXIMATE LOCATION OF THE ROAD" is complete bunk, but you probably figured that.  

Approximate location means that the positioning of the road on the map was approximated, not exact.
____________________

"You've got that right. These kinds of real estate deeds are very accurate because they just have to be."

TEPaul, the 1910 plan was not a deed.   While Mike Cirba deems it a "legal document" created by legally legal surveyors, I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.    

On any documents I have seen (whether or not they would qualify as 'legal documents' by the Cirba standard) "APPROXIMATE LOCATION" means APPROXIMATE LOCATION.  

TEPaul, As for actual property records, you and I both know that you are no expert at reading these documents, and that while you have been quite sure of the accuracy of your past interpretations of such documents in the past, you have been dead wrong and comically so.    

[DMoriarty]

As I said in my first post on this thread, the timing of the swap is a factual question, as is the description of the land that was swapped.

Why do you all suppose TEPaul is trying to convince us he is correct, while simultaneously HIDING MANY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS?

If he was correct, then the facts would be his friend, not his foe.   

And please let's not pretend that this has anything to do with the club's privacy concerns.  If TEPaul's behavior and his constant ultimatums about this material have proven one thing, it is that he can and will do whatever the hell he wants with this material.

With the facts, we could figure this out in no time.    Maybe TEPaul is correct, and maybe not, or maybe it is inconclusive.  But the facts provide that answer, not TEPaul's propaganda campaign or his brow beating.   I mean come on, Bryan Izzat takes the time to come up with a carefully created overlay and what he gets in response are TEPaul's insults and name calling?   

This discussion has always been between two groups.  Those who want to figure out what happened at Merion, and those who insist that they already know what happened and do not want any further conversation to take place.

[JESII]

I personally have become more interested in the topic of "The miniscule detail this thread has gotten into on land and land measurements"[/i] because the logic just doesn't add up in my head.

Why would a surveyor create an approximate triangle on a land plan without instruction from the group purchasing the plan? He wouldn't.

Why would the group purchasing the land plan carve out a triangle (even if only an approximation) for no reason? Wouldn't larger / wider areas be more logical?

When did LLoyd gain control of HDC?



Mike...why couldn't the 14th hole have gone up the 18th hole, finishing before the quarry...from in front of, or behind the clubhouse (coincidentally, right near the 13th green)? From there you could do a number of things over and around the quarry before coming back down to the current 14th tee / 18th green neighborhood...

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike...why couldn't the 14th hole have gone up the 18th hole, finishing before the quarry...from in front of, or behind the clubhouse (coincidentally, right near the 13th green)? From there you could do a number of things over and around the quarry before coming back down to the current 14th tee / 18th green neighborhood...

Jim,

Ok, so you've now routed 14 from behind the 13th original green up to just short of the quarry in what I assume would be another very short par four.

Where do you fit the other 4 holes inside the blue area (and remember only one of them can be a par three), if that's all the land they were considering for golf holes prior to getting ahold of the entire triangle per David's theory? 

[JESII]

How about:
#15 - a par 3 down to the right (NE) corner of the property
#16 - a par four up towards the top left (NW) corner
#17 - a short par four to today's 16th green neighborhood
#18 - a long par four down to todays 18th green or even beyond a bit

Not rocket science...and I have no reason to believe CBM had anything to do with anything...it just makes more sense to me that they wanted to go up into that corner (triangle) for a green and a tee when they requested the land survey...and that at that point, LLoyd could swap the triangle for the bowed section currently housing the "fine homes along Golf House Rd."

[Mike_Cirba]

Jim,

I'm not understanding how you're fitting those holes inside the blue area?

For DM;s theory to be true, that's all the land they had left to work with of the 120 acres cuz they had none of the triangle, the lamd they gave up was not part of any golf layout they had considered, and the first 13 holes were already located.

So, that's all that's left if they really had done something so shortsighted as only buying 65 yards north of the quarry for golf when they could have gone to Collegw Avenue.

I have a tough time believing that Macdonald and Whigham were that dumb! 

[Mike_Cirba]

So Jim...get back to work on that routing and this time stay within the blue lines young man because remember for DM's theory to be correct we haven't swapped for any of that cute little triangle yet! 

[JESII]

Mike,

Why couldn't you? Look at what I suggested again...you have a hole somewhat similar to todays 17th as the 15th, an uphill medium length 16th that goes from the extreme NE corner of the proposed property straight West to Golf House Rd., then a short par 4 that curls around the quarry to the location of the 16th green today (actually a pretty spectacular visual) as the 17th and then you've got all the room in the world to play a long par four down to the clubhouse.

Besides...

If they were able to "get a little bit of land by the clubhouse" which resulted in the original 13th hole, don't you think they could have "gotten" a little more to the East of your blue line if they really needed it?

[JESII]

Mike,

I am not saying anyone is right or wrong, but you seem to have been a bit narrow-minded in not considering the the 65 yards above the quarry actually could be traveled sideways instead or head-on...

[Mike_Cirba]

Jim,

I'm enroute to a Springsteen concert and having a tough time conceptualizing what you're describing with only a Blackberry to type on so let me review and reply after I can get a better look later tonight.

Thanks for giving it a shot.

[JESII]

Just IM'd you with my phone number if you're able to talk...