"Tom,
You're the only one on here that has clearly said your opinion of events proves those events happened. David has come close, but you're passing your interpretation of alot of this stuff off as fact...when it's frequently up for debate."
Well, then Sully, if I said that I think the series of recorded evidence we have PROVES something like the Francis fix/swap happened in 1911 or in March/April of 1911 and it categorically PROVES it could not possibly have happened before Nov. 10, 1910 then just let me be the first to amend that and belay that idea, right here and right NOW!! OK?
I am definitely NOT and never have been into this bullshit agenda of David Moriarty's that any of this stuff has to or does categorically PROVE any event such as would be expected in some court of law. That's Moriarty's schitck that he uses to counter everyone else's arguments but yet totally fails to apply to himself and his own arguments and even when called on to do it and asked to do that.
And what the hell kind of PROOF is he looking for in the Merion East history of 1910 and 1911? Is he trying to apply the legal principle of "PROOf beyond a reasonable doubt" as in a criminal trial or is he only asking that it should be the civil law principle of "Proof via a Preponderence of Evidence?"
Again, my feeling is both legal principles applied to this subject of the history of Merion are Bullshit----eg Moriarty's Bullshit!
I just feel all the records from MCC and elsewhere that some of us have available to us and have considered carefully over the last year just very strongly indicate that Merion's recorded history is accurate and that Francis fix very likely happened in 1911 and most likely towards the end of March, beginning of April 1911, and almost definitely not before Nov. 10, 1910 given the preponderance of accumulated material evidence throughout this entire year or so from June/July 1910 to July 1911. That is what historians and historical analysts do---eg they look for what is the most likely indication of what happened in the past and they present the reasons they feel that way. Historians are not encumbered to work under some legal principle of discovery or proof that must rise to someting like "Beyond a reasonable doubt" or a "Preponderance of evidence" even though Moriarty has never been able to understand that or admit it.
His thesis or hypothesis or theory or premise or assumption or conclusion or whatever he calls it today that is the theme of his essay and his on-going position on here was simply something that he wrote that varied from Merion's architectual history that was put on here for people to consider and as of now I do not know a single person other than himself and perhaps MacWood that believes it and endorses it.
Most all I've spoken with about it view it as a massive excercise in truly fallacious logic and reasoning, and the ones who know it all best do understand and in fairness to him, he tried to do it with far, far less material evidence than was actually available and that we have now.
"Regarding those letters and accompanying blueprints...how do you think he would have subdivided the property into his alphabetic system?"
I have no idea about that. Wilson, Oakley or anyone else I'm aware of never spoke to that point at all, as far as I know. My only point about the lettered sections on that blueprint was that if there had been numbered holes on that blueprint, in my opinion, they probably would've used their numbers as references to the labled turf and soil samples that were sent from Merion to Washington rather than lettered sections.