"Tom,
Consider me dense, but is there any reason to think that whomever enlisted the professional surveyor to produce that 11/15/1910 Land Plan suggested certain dimensions for the triangle created by the "approximate location of the road"?"
Sully:
I have no idea if anyone suggested certain dimensions for the triangle created by the "approximate location of the road." But I think we can be certain that someone told the Pugh and Hubbard surveyor who did that Nov. 15, 1910 proposed land plan for the club and the real estate development what to do with the road to create 117 acres for the golf course with the remainder (221 acres) of the 338 acres total going to the real estate development.
But who the hell knows, maybe at that early point (Nov 1910) they only told the surveyor to delineate about a 1000 yard road in some way that dimensionally WOULD end up creating a 117 acre parcel. Maybe he just drew the thing simply so it would create 117 acres with one parcel (the proposed golf course) and 221 acres with the other parcel (the proposed development). We sure do know all they had to work with was 338 acres because the Lloyd coorespondence and the MCC records say as much a number of times.
We know from MCC records that Connell and Lloyd negotiated the 117 acres for golf and 221 acres for the development---eg actually the whole financial arrangement both ways was predicated on that. The MCC records mentioned that. But when that was done and presented to MCC at some point before Nov. 10th noone said a thing about an actual layout and hole designs having been done at that point. It just seems like they sort of felt comfortable they had enough land to layout a course at that point when the committee who was going to do it got appointed. I'm sure Lloyd and MCC felt that way because back in June Macdonald and Whigam had told MCC that on seemingly considerably less land than 117 they could probably get a good course if it wasn't more than 6,000 yards (at that point I doubt the 21 acre Dallas Estate was actively considered by Macdonald/Whigam or they probably would've mentioned it as they did the 3 acre railroad land).
So I believe the very same boundary configurations that show up on that Nov. 15, 1910 land plan with the proposed road drawn on it that was 117 acres was the very same total configuration they had their topo contour maps made off of and the very same configuration that was taken well past Lloyd's purchase of THAT land (the 117 acre configuration off that Nov. 15, 1910 land plan) and more----Lloyd actually bought 161 acres on Dec. 15, 1910.
So my point here is if that Francis land swap took place BEFORE Lloyd bought that land on Dec. 19. 1910 (The Missing Faces of Merion essay claims that triangle was entirely created BEFORE that Nov. 15, 1910 plan was drawn BECAUSE that triangle shows up on that Nov. 15, 1910 land plan
) WHY in the world would Thompson's Resolution at the April 19, 1911 board meeting be asking the board to approve an exchange of land ALREADY PURCHASED for land adjoining the 117 acres that Lloyd had purchased for them on Dec. 19, 1910 IF Lloyd had ALREADY DONE that with Francis BEFORE he even PURCHASED the land?? IF THAT WERE THE CASE then there never would've been a need for MCC's board to consider it and vote on it.
And furthermore there would've been little point in Cuyler's letter of Dec. 21, 1910 telling MCC's president that Lloyd had taken the land into his own name for the very purpose of moving boundaries around AFTER his purchase of the land to be eventually turned over to MCC.
This was the only land swap ever mentioned by MCC and the 4/19/11 minutes confirm that it happened AFTER Dec. 19, 1910 and not BEFORE Nov. 15, 1910 because the resolution said land ALREADY PURCHASED! The point is that triangle had been there ever since Lloyd and Connell negotiated a proposed land plan which got drawn on a Nov. 15, 1910 land plan by professional surveyor Pugh and Hubbard to go before MCC.
Francis's idea had nothing to do with CREATING that triangle that they eventually felt was too narrow. Of course The Missing Faces of Merion essayist couldn't have known any of that because it wasn't until yesterday that I noticed that Thompson's resolution actually said LAND ALREADY PURCHASED!
It's obviously from all this that in 1910 nobody was actively working on a layout and design plan for Merion East or at least nothing that could be considered anything like a final plan. That would not happen until the Wilson Committee was appointed in the beginning of 1911 and as Wilson's report to the same 4/19/11 board meeting says they got to work doing numerous courses and ultimately five different plans. Again, if there had been somethng in 1910 even remotely like a final plan why in the world did Wilson and his committee do so many courses and plans in the winter of 1911?
Don't worry Sully, I have no doubt at all the essayist will try to come up with some other fallacious reasons to try to make a semi-credible point that this is all inaccurate somehow too. It should be interesting to see. Or perhaps more likely though since even he may be out of explanations is he will just revert to accussing me of being insulting and attacking his reputation or some such additional claptrap!