"I think his basic logic of relying on writings 25 years later is flawed. At least, when the Merion guys relied on a club history published that long after the fact, he and DM thrashed the veracity of that soundly, did they not? And yet......here is he using later documents to trump your first hand accounts from good players in national championship qualifiers, etc."
Mr Jeffrey Sir:
I think it would be more accurate for you to say MacWood and Moriarty TRIED to thrash the veracity soundly of the latest Merion history book but what in actual fact did they find in it that was historically inaccurate?
The only thing I'm aware of that was historically inaccurate in that history book was the mention that Wilson went abroad in 1910 and not 1912 when he actually did go abroad. However, that history book or the former one by the same author also mentioned that rumor that had always been around Merion that Wilson also almost sailed on the Titanic and the book mentioned that that was interesting since the Titanic maiden voyage was almost two years AFTER they mentioned Wilson went abroad. So the truth was that that story was in fact not a rumor and that he did almost sail from France on the Titanic. Luckily, for him, he delayed his return by a few weeks for reasons we are not aware of.
Moriarty in his usual logic and fact distorting way, and with MacWood's assistance, apparently used that single mistaken fact in that Merion history book as some kind of building block to go on to create the perception that Merion's architectural history back then was all wrong by creating premises and assumptions and then conclusions that numerous other things about Merion's history were wrong as well such as that later trip proved that Wilson and his committee could not have routed and designed that course in 1911.
His initial fallacious premise to that effect proved nothing of the kind. He even tried to use the perception that Wilson and committee could not have done it on their own because the story at Merion HAD ALWAYS BEEN that he had to go abroad and do drawings and such BEFORE he began to route and design the course. THAT story was NOT around Merion back then. Matter of fact, THAT story did not crop up until about a half century AFTER Wilson and his committee routed and designed that course in 1911 and then later went abroad in 1910.
That history book also included the fact that Macdonald and Whigam lent some help and advice to Merion back in those two early years; a fact that Tom MacWood did not seem to realize when he started a thread on here in 2003 ("Re: Macdonald and Merion?") that included some articles he had found that mentioned Macdonald and Whigam had lent their support. Apparently MacWood thought he had discovered something that Merion never knew and never acknowledged, and thereby must have minimized Macdonald's contribution apparently for the purpose of inaccurately glorifying Wilson's contribution. That was not true either----they always acknowledge Macdonald's contribution; matter of fact their contemporaneous meeting minutes back then (1910 and 1911) comprehensively reflect that.
Those two birds didn't soundly thrash the veracity of Merion's recorded history at all---even if they still try and make people think they did somehow. And that is precisely why Merion and anyone around it who really do know the facts of the history of Merion saw right through that absurd IMO piece of Moriarty's entitled "The Missing Faces of Merion."
Of course MacWood, seemingly on his own, even tried to take the thing a step further into absurdity by suggesting that HH Barker must have routed and designed Merion East rather than Wilson and his committee.
