Bryan,
Again, I'm hesitant to speak for Jeff, but my understanding is as follows.
In November 1910 Merion members were asked to support an effort to "secure" 117 acres for a golf course. That is incorrect. The letter said the land was already "secured". What they asked the members to support was the buying of bonds to pay for the purchase of the "secured" land. That was obviously approved. They didn't ask for approval, they stated it was already secured. Brian, Fair distinction. I should know to be precise by now but it does get tiring typing the same stuff again and again and I'm sure you feel the same. However, if the members didn't "support" the bond solicitation, what would have happened to the "secured" land? That's rhetorical...I'm only stating that this was NOT a done deal at that point. The solicitation includes a copy of the Land Plan which although the letter says represents 117 acres, measures at 122 and is labelled "approximate", which means that someone purposefully left that language in. Why not just put the final boundary on the map if it had been already finalized?? Why say the plan depicts the 117 acre property for the "Golf Course"? Isn't the answer to both questions - we don't know?We can phrase this however we like but the point is simple; neither the golf course boundary had been finalized or was their any hint of a routing being done by or for the club, much less finalized by November 15, 1910.
At that point they didn't "purchase" anything.
In December 1910, after Merion's counsel Cuyler recommended Lloyd take 161 acres (140 of Johnson Farm and 21 of Dallas Estate) under his name for HDC so that he can move around that "approximate" boundary as necessary to support the demands of the golf course. You've done excellent work producing the other reports and letters. It sure would be nice if you could produce the Cuyler letter, so that we can judge for ourselves what it says in context.Bryan, unfortuately due to completely desperate and inappropriate behavior like my being called a "liar" here the last two days, the odds of anyone who has those letters actually giving me permission to reproduce ANYTHING they have spent their good time and efforts researching just because someone here cries that they don't have it is unfortunately very, very, very slim.
They and their research have been the target here all along so let's not pretend that they should be asked to play nicely or even participate here any longer and frankly, if I were a member of Merion or any club and put up with the abuse those guys took here I'd tell all of you to f*ck off, nothing personal intended to you Bryan.
Francis did have his brainstorm.
However, it involved having to work outside the lines! What he came up with involved moving portions of holes even further west of that approximate boundary, which is why he needed Lloyd's permission and counsel, and which is the area that falls outside of your overlay past the western border. THAT is the swap. If that is the swap, why did he specifically say only that it was 130 x 190? You've said that it meant that that was the final size of that area, but that's an interpretation on your part, and a fairly large leap. Keeping on repeating it doesn't make it true. And, if he was going to be specific about final dimensions, why didn't he mention the final dimensions alonside the 14th fairway and green?I realize that this is the only bit of evidence that is left for those arguing that there had to be some golf course routing prior to November 1910, but we also know that what was drawn on the Land Plan isn't even close to 130x190..it's 100x327. I'll repeat that I believe Francis was either just trying to anecdotally simplify what was a fairly complex idea overall for a brief magazine article 40 years later, or he just was recalling what they needed in width overall to make those holes fit...not that they bought the WHOLE section. There's really no need for us to keep having this same disagreement. I would contend that the fact there is not a single shred of other eviidence pointing to any routing taking place before that time either by or for the Merion Golf Club as enough corroborating evidence that my opinion is the correct one.
The goal all along was to work within the limits of the 117 acres that the club had approved. The club hadn't approved them, they had secured them, but obviously in retrospect it was only a working number, not a final fixed target. Agreed, except it's important to keep in mind that any land going to the golf course was land unavailable for the more profitable real estate endeavor and that it was a zero-sum game in that regard.
When it came down to it, they couldn't, although they gave back a number of acres of land along that boundary from the 122 or so it was drawn as. In the end, it worked out to 120 acres which is why they needed the club to authorize the purchase of 3 additional acres in April 1911, for the same purchase price per acre as the rest of the HDC land. That alone should tell us that they weren't referring to the Railroad land. That is incorrect. They approved the purchase of 3 acres that were not described in the snippet of Merion Board minutes that Tom revealed. And they approved the purchase for $7,500 or $2,500 an acre, which bears no resemblance to the $825 an acre Connell originally offered, or the $726.50 an acre the board "secured" them for, or the $708.33 that they actually paid for them. The $2,500 price per acre leads me to conclude that it is the RR land, supported by the fact they went out and leased 3 acres from the RR the next month. I'll have to go back and check...you may be correct.
They needed approval to move from 117 to 120 acres. Approval from whom? Lloyd had the 161 acres and was on the MCC side.
In the end, it didn't matter because with Lloyd in control on both sides they still only paid the originally agreed price of $85,000. It's just that they first needed to get approval from the club to "purchase" the extra 3 acres that took them from the originally approved 117 to the new 120 acres. This logic is so convoluted that I can't even respond to it. They had to get approval to purchase something that Lloyd already owned on their behalf? Did you put purchase in quotes because even you don't believe it was really a purchase in any normal understanding of the term. The 3 acre purchase was intended to be of the RR property, IMHO.I don't think it's meaningful to anything but a technicality but I'll go back and double-check my understanding here. In either case, we know that Merion had "secured" 117 acres in November 1910, took under mortgage 120.1 acres in July 1911, and built a golf course on 123 acres, which included 3 acres leased in May 1911 from the railroad.
And Mr. Francis did indeed have his brainstorm.