Merion's Early Timeline

[DMoriarty]

Mike,

Now that you and Phil are pleased with your tone, how about you devote a little energy to content?  You've misstated NGLA's history dozens of times now, and there is no excuse for it.   M&W FOUND THE HOLES FIRST AND DID A ROUGH ROUTING THEN.  Then they optioned 205 acres based on that rough routing.  Then they spent substantial time detailing the plan, then they completed the purchase.   There was never an intent at NGLA to fit the course on 110 acres.  That statement was a relic from a letter written in 1904.

I've provided you with multiple sources on this, including statements from those who were there and Max Behr, so why do you repeatedly get it wrong?  Could it be that you are changing it to suit your rhetorical purposes?  Not intentionally of course, but in the heat of argument?  Because you have it wrong again.  

I have to believe that you understand these things by now.   So why do you keep misrepresenting them?

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

I'll be happy to have that discussion....are you saying that George's book has it wrong?

However, as a starting point, please answer my basic question about how many Macdonald courses you've seen or played in person, as well as any of Raynor's.    Thanks.


This is what Behr said, and I think we are once again disagreeing in matters of degrees, but I see the "rough routing" as not being really a routing at all but more an identification of the location of all the key natural features that one would want to see included in the final product.  


"The ideal method was followed at the National. First the right sort of territory was found. Then the course was roughly sketched out using all the best features of the landscape. Then enough land (about 205 acres) was bought to embrace all the necessary features (italics mine). And in actually laying out the course (which really laid itself out to a large extent) no concession was made to economy in the use of land. Even so a considerable part of the 205 acres is not touched by the course and is available for other purposes. And there you have the solution of the whole business."

[TEPaul]

MikeC:

When you said above that Macdonald (Macdonald/Raynor) tended to move a good deal of earth if necessary to put a particular type of hole (template hole) on a particular landform, there is no question at all of that in some instances of which I am aware and have studied with that in mind very closely and intently, particularly in the last half decade or so.

One is definitely Piping Rock's redan, a redan I happen to think plays better than any other redan I have ever seen with the possible exception of NGLA's.

Merion's #3 (that some have called a redan or reverse redan concept) is, on the other hand, seemingly largely a pre-existing landform to the golf course and the story behind what it was before the golf course is a most interesting one. Matter of fact, even on one of those PRR plat maps before the the golf course was built on that land one can actually see what it was!

[Tom MacWood]

Mike
The NGLA was not the only golf course CBM designed. If I were looking for an appropriate example to compare with Merion it would not be the NGLA, which was one of the most unique projects in golf history.

How much time did CBM spend at Sleepy Hollow or St. Louis or Old White - I think those comparisons would be more useful. Also, many golf architects at the time utilized topo maps when designing, which allowed them to be working on a project when not physically on site.

Tom,

That's a good point, but again one needs to look at the timelines.   During the period that you guys are implying that Macdonald would be studiously working away on some topographical map of the Merion course, he was just then beginning to get his NGLA course open after four solid years of work, and he still had a ways to go.   We also know that the land boundaries for Merion weren't even determined until after December 1910, and the formal course routing planning took place over the next three and a half months.  

You don't believe he could have found time to work on a routing in the winter of 1910-11? The NGLA's first tournament was 7/1910. I think his work was more or less finished, and there is not much to do in the winter anyway. He obviously had time to enter the 1910 US Am at Brookline, attend the USGA meeting in Chicago, and spend two days with the Merion committee in Southampton. He also agreed to design Piping Rock and Sleepy Hollow during this period. I don't think time was an issue.  

  
Just as I pointed out earlier when we were told that Macdonald first laid out the course (I believe "roughly routed" was the term used) at NGLA  in 2-3 days on horseback, this was not the actual routing process at all, which actually took months and happened AFTER Seth Raynor was contracted to topographically survey the land in 1907.   Once again. we need to look at what was happening when.

The examples you're using...Greenbriar and St. Louis, both took place after Seth Raynor had been hired full-time by Macdonald, which was well after Merion.   Both were begun in 1912, well after NGLA was in full gear and Macdonald finally had some time to spread his game.

And in both of those cases, although Macdonald did not spend as much time onsite as he did at National, he left his own man, Seth Raynor onsite to act in his stead.

With Wilson & Johnson Contractors on site, Raynor is a non-issue. Anyway that is the construction phase not the design phase. Those issues would have had no bearing on whether CBM could have been working on plans from topo maps during the winter of 1910-11.

Who did he leave onsite at Merion?

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom MacWood,

The point is that Macdonald did not work like that at all in terms of designing courses at that time, much less doing a "paper job" based on a single day's visit for Merion.

What evidence exists that he did?   Why would he need to if HH Barker already routed the course as you contend?

Are you just trying to throw enough at the wall and seeing if anything sticks?

Are you saying that all detailed design decisions were already made at St. Louis and Greenbriar by Macdonald prior to construction and that building the course was Raynor's only task at those sites?

[Tom MacWood]

Mike
How do you know he did not work that way? Wasn't he the one who suggested they have a topo map made?

My point is you should not make blanket statements without supporting information. I don't know CBM's design modus at Sleepy Hollow, St. Louis, Old White, etc, do you? I have not seen anything to indicate he spent a lot of time at those sites designing those courses, but who knows.

I have always maintained I have no idea who routed or designed the course. I have said I think there is a good case that Barker did come back to route the course. I also think there is a good case the CBM planned many of the individual holes. But the jury is still out conclusively on both, which is why its important that information like the April 1911 be made available. By the way I don't think there is a good case that Wilson was involved in either process prior to his trip to the UK.

[JESII]

By the way I don't think there is a good case that Wilson was involved in either process prior to his trip to the UK.

Tom,

Wilson was appointed Chairman in early 1911 and his committee spent two days with CBM at NGLA discussing plans and holes etc...and re-worked the course upon their return.

How is this not involved in either process prior to 1912?

[Mike_Cirba]

By the way I don't think there is a good case that Wilson was involved in either process prior to his trip to the UK.

Tom,

Wilson was appointed Chairman in early 1911 and his committee spent two days with CBM at NGLA discussing plans and holes etc...and re-worked the course upon their return.

How is this not involved in either process prior to 1912?

Jim,

It should also be noted that the committee spent two days with CBM at NGLA "after laying our many different golf courses on the new ground..." during some indeterminate, unspecified time period prior to March 1911.

[JESII]

Tom,

Curious to hear a straight answer to a straight question...thanks.

[Tom MacWood]

By the way I don't think there is a good case that Wilson was involved in either process prior to his trip to the UK.

Tom,

Wilson was appointed Chairman in early 1911 and his committee spent two days with CBM at NGLA discussing plans and holes etc...and re-worked the course upon their return.

How is this not involved in either process prior to 1912?

Wilson was appointed chairman of the committee to construct the new course. The committee spent two days at the NGLA and in that time learned more on golf course construction than they had learned in all their years playing the game. We don't know exactly what they did when they returned because that report is not available for review. We do know construction began in late March/early April.

I think there is a good case Wilson initial role was that of construction, and his design activities did not begin until he returned from the UK.

[Tom MacWood]

By the way I don't think there is a good case that Wilson was involved in either process prior to his trip to the UK.

Tom,

Wilson was appointed Chairman in early 1911 and his committee spent two days with CBM at NGLA discussing plans and holes etc...and re-worked the course upon their return.

How is this not involved in either process prior to 1912?

Jim,

It should also be noted that the committee spent two days with CBM at NGLA "after laying our many different golf courses on the new ground..." during some indeterminate, unspecified time period prior to March 1911.

That is one interpretation. But I would prefer not to guess what a document says that none of us has access to.

[PThomas]

this thread reminds me of "The Song that never ends":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_47KVJV8DU

[DMoriarty]

Mike,

You have repeatedly injected NGLA into this, and repeatedly misrepresented what happened at NGLA in so doing.  Why are you unable or unwilling to accurately understand and present the facts?    We've covered it too many times.  It is cycle: You misrepresent what happened at NGLA, I correct you by providing you with the direct evidence contradicting your position;  You drop it for a while;   You start over again, misrepresenting what happened at NGLA  . . ..

It has got to stop.   What happened at NGLA is documented by CBM himself.   Quit twisting it to fit in with your preconceived, fanciful notion to try and support your point.  It didn't happen that way. 

David,

I'll be happy to have that discussion....are you saying that George's book has it wrong?

I am relying on the original source material, as you should be as well, given it is readily available.  But if you insist on relying on George instead of CBM, so be it.  Here is what George wrote recently on the subject, in your thread about Raynor's starting date:

"From what CBM wrote, it seems he and Whigham “found” the “holes” they wanted and inside that context he then looked for a surveyor to survey the property and then lay out the holes.
. . ."

And here is what CBM wrote on the subject, in Scotland's Gift:

"However, there happened to be some 450 acres of land on Sebonac Neck, having a mile of frontage on Peconic Bay and laying between Cold Spring Harbor and Bull's Head Bay.  This property was little known and had never been surveyed.  Every one thought it more or less worthless.  It abounded with bogs and swamps and was covered with an entanglement of bayberry, huckleberry, blackberry and other bushes and was infested by insects.  The only way one could get over the ground was on ponies.  So Jim Whigham and myself spent two or three days riding over it, studying the contours of the ground.  Finally we determined what it was we wanted, providing we could get it reasonably.  It joined Shinnecock Hills Golf Course.   The company agreed to sell us 205 acres, and we were permitted to locate it as to best serve our purpose. Again, we studied the contours earnestly; selecting those that would fit in naturally with the various classical holes I had in mind, after which we staked out the land we wanted.
        We found an Alps; found an ideal Redan; then we discovered a place we could put the Eden hole which would not permit a topped ball to run-up on the green.  Then we found a wonderful water-hole, now the Cape.   We had a little over a quarter of a mile frontage on Peconic Bay, and we skirted Bull's Head Bay for about a mile.  The property was more or less remote, three miles from Southampton, there thoroughfares and railroads would never bother us-- a much desired situation.
       When playing golf you want to be alone with nature.
       We obtained an option on the land in November, 1906, and took title to the property in the spring of 1907. . . .

Here is what was in Golf Illustrated in 1915, presumably by Behr, who was at the first tournament:

. . . The ideal links is only to be made in any locality by finding the most suitable situation in a general way and then laying out the best eighteen holes that the nature of the land will admit irrespective of the amount of property used in the process. And this is really the most economical plan in the long run . . .
. . .

Generally there are natural features to be made use of, and they should be employed without thinking of economy. The ideal method was followed at the National. First the right sort of territory was found. Then the course was roughly sketched out using all the best features of the landscape. Then enough land (about 205 acres) was bought to embrace all the necessary features. And in actually laying out the course (which really laid itself out to a large extent) no concession was made to economy in the use of land. Even so a considerable part of the 205 acres is not touched by the course and is available for other purposes. And there you have the solution of the whole business.


So Mike, this notion that these holes were just tossed out anywhere without regard to the landforms is nonsense.  They were located according to the landforms.  When it comes to NGLA, is not even reasonably disputable.    Yet you continue to pretend that this was not the case.  Please stop.


However, as a starting point, please answer my basic question about how many Macdonald courses you've seen or played in person, as well as any of Raynor's.    Thanks.  Raynor has nothing to do with this.  I've played NGLA.  What other CBM courses should I have played that were designed before Merion?

. . . I think we are once again disagreeing in matters of degrees, but I see the "rough routing" as not being really a routing at all but more an identification of the location of all the key natural features that one would want to see included in the final product.  

Your interpretation is untenable and contrary to the facts and statements of those with a much better and closer understanding than you.   The entire point of the Behr article, and the point of Macdonald's description above, is that, as a first step, a golf course should be arranged according to what the natural features dictate.  Fit the holes according to the natural features, and not visa versa.  Whether Raynor eventually got this backward is entirely irrelevant to what was happening in 1910-1911 with CBM at NGLA and at Merion.

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

If Macdonald fit the holes to the existing land at NGLA, why the requirement to move so much earth to create many of the key features they wanted?

I have no doubt that M+W, after exhaustively spending several dedicated days on horseback  riding around the property found locations for key features of some of the holes they had in mind, but why if things were so crystalline do you think they spent another three months on the ground planning and staking out the course before beginning construction?   Isn't that today what we think of largely as the design process, which often leads to routing changes and other revisions?

For instance, early reports talked about Macdonald wanting to locate his "short" hole on a promontory on the edge of Bulls Head Bay, which we know never happened.

In any case, where does any evidence exist pointing to M+W's involvement at Merion in anything even remotely resembling this fairly gigantic planning effort?

[TEPaul]

“The point is that Macdonald did not work like that at all in terms of designing courses at that time, much less doing a "paper job" based on a single day's visit for Merion.

What evidence exists that he did?"



Mike:

That is a fascinating question and one I've been thinking about for some years now. To even attempt to answer it we pretty much have to put Macdonald's career in architecture into a timeline! It's amazing just how useful and helpful "timelining" can be with these kinds of subjects and questions.

First of all---and to use a timeline of Macdonald's career, I personally am not aware that anyone or any other club had called on Macdonald/Whigam when MCC did in June 1910 or before June 1910. MCC may've been the first to do that and if any others did before MCC did there doesn't seem to be any evidence anywhere of it or that Macdonald responded and came to them at their request and offered his help and advice as he and Whigam did to MCC in June 1910.

Piping Rock called on him as did Sleepy Hollow but neither before 1911 or later. Macdonald himself chronicles this in his own biography and I hope it will not be something we do now to begin questioning and parsing Macdonald's own words on that from his biography. “Scotland’s Gift Golf.”  

We need to ask what MCC actually asked Macdonald to do in June 1910 and then again in March 1911 and April 6, 1911, as those were the ONLY times it seems they asked him to do anything for them relating to golf architecture, and we surely do have that Wilson report of all the work they did on the Merion site in the winter and spring of 1911 on their own and without Macdonald there with them. It seems to me what they asked him was to explain to them how he went about creating the course at NGLA with himself and his initial group of "amateur/sportsmen" expert golfers----eg Whigam, Travis, Emmet and even James Stillman and Joseph Knapp.

We also need to ask ourselves what they seemingly DID NOT ask him to do. For that we can just look to see if any evidence at all exists that they ever asked him to spend the time routing and designing holes for Merion East perhaps in the mode he had used at NGLA which of course interestingly is the only course MCC mentioned when they referred to M/W in their meeting minutes. Is it recorded anywhere at any time by anyone that MCC EVER asked him to route and design a golf course for them as Piping Rock and Sleepy Hollow and the rest that he would do later clearly asked him to do?

I don't think so and if they did then why in the world did MCC never say so as Piping and Sleepy Hollow and all the rest clearly did do and did say?

I think all MCC ever even asked Macdonald to do for them was to explain to them how they could go about doing with Merion East what he did at NGLA with a committee of "amateur/sportsmen" expert golfers, and that is precisely why they formed and appointed a group of expert golfers in Wilson, Griscom, Lloyd, Lloyd and Francis that replicated Macdonald's Whigam, Travis, Emmett, Stillman and Knapp. It has never been lost on me that Macdonald very likely may've told them to put a professional engineer on the project like he had done with Raynor. Merion found that person in their own Richard Francis. And that is why Wilson and his committee has always been given the credit for Merion East unlike all the rest of the other courses Macdonald did which I do not believe any amateur/sportsman committee of the ilk of NGLA and MCC was ever even mentioned!

To me this is not only all MCC did with Macdonald/Whigam but it was all they ever really asked him to do. To show them what he had done both architecturally and agronomically at one day meeting in June 1910, at that 2 day visit in March 1911 to NLGA and that one day visit in April 6, 1911 at Ardmore to review THEIR plans just seems like a natural evolution of what kindly advice and help is all about that it is clear to see they very much appreciated and thanked him for in their own club records.

But to actual take the time to route and design a course for them at that point----I don't think so and there is no evidence of that whatsoever and if they had even ASKED him to do that or actually had him do that then there is just no reason in the world why they would not have said so and recorded that too for all the world to see for the rest of time!

The next and really fascinating question is why did Macdonald accept the call to come to MCC that way in 1910 (perhaps the first request of him from anyone after NGLA) and why did he accept the request to design Piping Rock, Sleepy Hollow, Lido, Old White, St Louis, The Creek and Yale later, particularly since he never took a fee for what he did for those clubs.

For the answers to those questions I think we pretty much need to look very carefully at who the people were who were making those requests of him that he actually accepted. And I believe in every single case we will find they were hugely rich and powerful men of business, particularly Wall St and related business and in most all cases Macdonald knew most all of them beforehand. I wonder how and why? Yeah RIGHT!

What does that mean then? What did it mean to Macdonald? How can there be much question that by spending his time and UNPAID to boot to do these favors for these clubs and these types of really powerful people he must have felt he would get back in kind their favor in what his real job was----eg a stock broker specialist, perhaps floor broker specialist for Barney and Co.

And lastly, did any of the other clubs that utilized Macdonald's architectural services and for which he was given complete design and architectural attribution and credit both then and in the future have in place an "amateur/sportsmen" committee as CBM did at NGLA  and  MCC did with their Wilson Committee?

If we look closely at the history and historical club records of Piping, Sleepy, Lido, Old White, St Louis, The Creek, Mid Ocean and Yale I think not and that is part of the key or perhaps most of the key to understanding MCC, The Wilson Committee, Macdonald/Whigam only receiving help and advice attribution from MCC rather than complete design and architectural attribution that the other clubs that he was personally involved with that followed MCC and Merion East always gave him!  


That's my overall take on MCC, Merion East, Wilson and Committee and Macdonald/Whigam's help and advice that was the description of their attribution to him and them (M/W). That has been Merion G.C. recorded and reported history for a century now and there does not appear to be one single good reason to reconsider it or revise and rewrite it. I don't need to say more and probably shouldn't.

[RJ_Daley]

I mention this on the "perspective" thread, and as I said there, maybe I missed it; but did any or you gentlemen ever come across articles by Fred Byrod that talk about any of the subject matter you are debating, regarding Merion?  I would think that with all of Joe Baush's efforts in archives, he must have seen something.  Byrod's having lived until age 93, and his rememberances on the Aronimink website history, would seem to me to suggest he knew plenty of the old Philly inside story.  Just think, when all this Merion stuff got started, Mr. Byrod was still here on the planet.  Pity he wasn't interviewed.  Or, is this a dead end, no pun intended? 

[DMoriarty]

David,

If Macdonald fit the holes to the existing land at NGLA, why the requirement to move so much earth to create many of the key features they wanted?

One place where I respectfully disagree with George is in his description of Macdonald "importing 10,000 truckloads of soil to recontour and sculpt areas to fit his diagrams."

I don't think soil would have been trucked in for that purpose, as he brought in soil, and imported soil would have been unnecessary and expensive if the goal for shaping purposes.   I believe the soil was topsoil to grow grass because of the the horrible characteristics of the native sand.  

Again, from Macdonald himself on page 158 of Scotland's gift, continuing where the quote above left off:

    "We obtained an option of the land in November, 1906, and took title to the property in the spring of 1907.  Immediately we commenced development.  In many places the land was impoverished.   These had to be top dressed.  Roughly speaking, I think we have probably put some 10,000 loads of good soil, including manure, on the property . . .."

I don't disagree that Macdonald was willing to move dirt, but I think this focused on green contours and mounding.   As Behr said, the land at NGLA largely laid itself out.  This doesn't sound like a major earth moving project to me.  

I have no doubt that M+W, after exhaustively spending several dedicated days on horseback  riding around the property found locations for key features of some of the holes they had in mind, but why if things were so crystalline do you think they spent another three months on the ground planning and staking out the course before beginning construction?   Isn't that today what we think of largely as the design process, which often leads to routing changes and other revisions?

For instance, early reports talked about Macdonald wanting to locate his "short" hole on a promontory on the edge of Bulls Head Bay, which we know never happened.

In any case, where does any evidence exist pointing to M+W's involvement at Merion in anything even remotely resembling this fairly gigantic planning effort?

You always compartmentalize M&W's involvement into discrete packets and pretend there could have been no connection between events.  But M&W were involved at both ends of the designing process and in between.    In other words they weren't just involved in one stage.  
1.  They were involved in the preliminary routing (starting with their visit in June 1910, and including but not limited to their meeting with the Site Committee and their letter to the board.)
2.  They were involved very soon after Wilson was appointed NGLA  (evidenced by Wilson's Feb. 1, 1911 letter.)
3.  They were involved in the March 1911 NGLA meetings, which focused on "the layout of the East Course."
4.  They were involved at the final stage of planning, in April 1911, where they reinspected the course and chose the final layout plan.
5.  They even remained involved after the layout plan they chose was presented to the board as such (as evidenced by the Ag. letters.)  

So how can you dismiss this as as "a half-day" routing?  However large the planning effort was at Merion,  M&W were involved from the first month to the last, and after!   Even if the initial routing was  a rough routing, an initial routing would not have been the end of their involvement but the beginning!  

As for Macdonald's mode of operation, rather than pontificate and ramble without offering factual support, why don't we go to the source material?  As I have quoted before from Whigham, CBM was an amateur and did not have time to spend extensive time on the ground designing.   Raynor would do the groundwork and Macdonald worked off of the plans.    

Now if Macdonald worked off the plans on his projects with Raynor, what makes you think he couldn't have done the same with Merion?  After all, he and Whigham had already inspected the site, and had some idea of what they wanted to do with it, and indicated that with a contour map they could route the course to see if it fit!    HE DIDN'T indicate that it would take a contour map and another month on site, did he?  

[David Stamm]

https://aronimink.memberstatements.com/tour/tours.cfm?tourid=4597

[TEPaul]

"I mention this on the "perspective" thread, and as I said there, maybe I missed it; but did any or you gentlemen ever come across articles by Fred Byrod that talk about any of the subject matter you are debating, regarding Merion?"

RJ:

I remember Fred Byrod. He was a pretty good friend of mine. He was old but not that old to have reported on the creation of Merion East first hand. I left you a bit more detailed post about this on the "perspective" thread.

[TEPaul]

"One place where I respectfully disagree with George is in his description of Macdonald "importing 10,000 truckloads of soil to recontour and sculpt areas to fit his diagrams."

I don't think soil would have been trucked in for that purpose, as he brought in soil, and imported soil would have been unnecessary and expensive if the goal for shaping purposes.   I believe the soil was topsoil to grow grass because of the the horrible characteristics of the native sand."



That is exactly right. It seems pretty odd that George Crump would make the very same mistake at Pine Valley about 5-6 years after Macdonald made that mistake at NGLA. And Crump would have to go through the very same expensive fix about 5-7 years after Macdonald did at NGLA.

That kind of thing probably also helps explain why Crump did not seem to be very close to Macdonald even if he had him down at least once that is quite well recorded. It was at that time that CBM made his famous remark about Pine Valley-----"This might be the greatest course in the world if they can get the grass to grow."

Crump made a pretty famous remark in that vein too. When asked what he wanted for Christmas he said just another truckload of topsoil.

By the way the one who was really on hand for that fix at PV and the one who wrote about it comprehensively afterwards was none other than Alan D. Wilson. After Crump died Hugh Wilson even became PV's green chairman for a time!

We call this kind of thing the "Philadelphia School of Architecture" because most all those guys were good friends and regular collaborators with one another and an unusual number of them to the famous courses here were also those interesting "amateur/sportsmen" architects who always refused remuneration for all that they did in golf and architecture.

[JESII]

That would have been a hell of a career huh Tommy, Fred Byrod interviewed me in 1999 at your place after the Philly Am...to think he was watching Hugh and the guys get pointed around by CBM 88 years earlier...

[TEPaul]

"Now if Macdonald worked off the plans on his projects with Raynor, what makes you think he couldn't have done the same with Merion?  After all, he and Whigham had already inspected the site, and had some idea of what they wanted to do with it, and indicated that with a contour map they could route the course to see if it fit!    HE DIDN'T indicate that it would take a contour map and another month on site, did he?"



Instead of just engaging in that kind of blatant speculation without an iota of evidence to support it I would much rather just look right at Macdonald's very own words on that specific matter. He never said a word about what "they" (M/W) wanted to do with that land and course. Here's what he ACTUALLY did say to MCC on that specific matter after that June 1910 visit.

"The most difficult problem YOU (MCC and not M/W) have to contend with is to get in eighteen first class holes in the acreage you intend purchasing..."  


Had Merion even asked him to route and design a golf course for them why would he say to them "YOU" (have to contend with) if he was going to do it for them or had been asked to do something like that for them? If that had been the case why in the world would he not have said in that letter "The most difficult problem "WE" (M/W and not MCC) have to contend with...."

Answer me THAT one word-parser!  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Not to interject into this fine exchange, but, the answer is that, in the ultimate, was MCC's problem, not M&W's problem, irrespective of their role. 

[TEPaul]

"That would have been a hell of a career huh Tommy, Fred Byrod interviewed me in 1999 at your place after the Philly Am...to think he was watching Hugh and the guys get pointed around by CBM 88 years earlier..."


I guess you just didn't know Fred as well as I did, Sully. When he interviewed you in 1999 Fred was actually 108. I thought he seemed like a pretty young 108 compared to all the other 108 year old people I've known but in 1999 he was 108 nonetheless. I'll tell you something else interesting about Fred Byrod. Up until about 2002 when he was 111 he could actually outdrive ME! Do you believe that? Pretty amazing, huh?

[Joe Bausch]

I mention this on the "perspective" thread, and as I said there, maybe I missed it; but did any or you gentlemen ever come across articles by Fred Byrod that talk about any of the subject matter you are debating, regarding Merion?  I would think that with all of Joe Baush's efforts in archives, he must have seen something.  Byrod's having lived until age 93, and his rememberances on the Aronimink website history, would seem to me to suggest he knew plenty of the old Philly inside story.  Just think, when all this Merion stuff got started, Mr. Byrod was still here on the planet.  Pity he wasn't interviewed.  Or, is this a dead end, no pun intended? 

I have come across some writings by Byrod, but none on Merion.  He wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer for many years, but I don't know his start year exactly.  But I think it was between 1935 and 1939.