"Exact details will never be known."
Even Mike C and TePaul have admitted that CBM probaby deserves a nod for a larger role, and you admit you don't want to diminish Wilson's huge contributions, some initial design, most construction and a lot on redesign.
Thus, I don't think facts will change interpretations. IF MCC ever redoes their history I suspect the CBM contributions will be highlighted a little more. And, because its a matter of opinion what the above noted contributions mean, you may not be satisfied with the added wording, just as some Wilson fans will be dissapointed if his design credit is reduced, even a smidge."
Jeff:
Those first words of yours---'the exact details will never be known' are the truest yet on this website and on this subject and isn't it the supreme irony that that is precisely what me and Wayne Morrison told Tom MacWood on our first two posts when he began all this on that thread entitled "Re: Macdonald and Merion" six and a half years ago?!
Well, he didn't accept that and he called for the search for more facts. He got those facts eventually but the problem with his perspective is he said he never realized Macdonald/Whigam advised and helped MCC back then. He apparently thought he discovered that and that Merion should know about it and reflect it in their history. What he didn't know back then is Merion always knew about that and always reflected it in their records and history book very definitely prominently and appropriately enough!
This is the very thing this website and many of its participants need to understand or understand better. These two guys act like it wasn't until they arrived on the scene on this website in 2003 that Merion was capable of understanding their own history and that they were here to unravel some mystery about Merion East's architectural history.
There never has been any mystery of Merion East's architectural history and who in the main was responsible for the architecture of Merion East from the beginning and no mystery is going to be acknowledged by Merion either.
I didn't admit Macdonald should be given more credit in some future history book. I can see the credit he was given in the last history book and in MCC's own records from back then in the beginning and if that could be improved on at all it would be only in specifically mentioning that he was at Ardmore for a day in June 1910 and his letter should be included in the history, that he had Wilson and his committee to NGLA in early March 1911 (not at some point in 1910) and that he came back for a day (April 6, 1911) went over the ground again and the Wilson Committee's five plans and said he would approve of one because it contained, in his opinion, the best last seven holes of any inland course in the world and that that plan was selected by the Wilson Committee, submitted to MCC's board of directors about two weeks later and the board gave that plan their consideration and final approval and construction on it was begun shortly there after.
That's all the credit Macdonald deserves given the actual facts (and sans speculation) and that's what Merion will give him and has always given him. As for Wilson, he (and his committee) always have been given the credit (and now with Flynn later) but now another very good reason that he has been given the credit and should be given that credit is that Wilson Committee report to the Board meeting of 4/19/1911. THAT is something that definitely should be included in Merion's future history books that never has been before including the part of that report that mentions them (the Wilson Committee) laying out numerous different courses on the ground, then going to NGLA (including what the report said about that) then returning home and rearranging things into five different plans one of which would be selected and approved on 4/19/1911.
That specific information was never recorded in Merion's history book but in the future it probably will be as it should be! In my opinion, and I firmly believe in Merion's and their historians THAT is what has come out of this six and a half years discussion and debate.
As a postscript, I should mention that the one and only thing that David Moriarty really did discover about Merion's history that will DEFINITELY be included in Merion's history and a future history book that no one seemed to know in the last forty or so years is that Wilson really did go abroad in March/April 1912 for about six weeks and not at some point in 1910 for about seven months which had been reported in the Merion history since perhaps the early 1970s. The only thing is it had absolutely no effect on what Wilson and his committee actually did do back then (app fifty years BEFORE that story) which was far far more than the essayist of this essay on here "The Missing Faces of Merion" wanted to give him and them or did.
What the two main protagonists of some architectural revisionist history ON HERE of Merion seem intent on doing or trying to do is plying the idea that if they just keep mentioning this revisionist crap often enough or long enough somebody might actually start to believe it has some truth. They can do that if they want but Merion sure isn't ever going to buy it.
You offered your recap Mr. Jeffrey Brauer Esq, Sir, and the foregoing is my recap!