The Creation of NGLA in Chronological, Contemporaneous News Articles

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

Why didn't Francis say they swapped for land all the way up north over 300 yards to College Ave??

[JESII]

Jim,

Looking at it, I'm betting that the property line continues straight south at the point GHR starts to curve but also then extends west to the middle of GHR.

The red line I drew is 130 yards end to end. It certainly seems simpler for them to have just purchased all of it (including the yellow triangle created when the road was dramatically re-routed to the east in what I believe was the Francis land swap)  rather than to leave that little piece of yellow corner next to Haverford College "unpurchased" in the deal...

I mean, what are you going to do with it, sell it back to HDC?    

Why do you think that Pugh & Hubbard wouldn't have reflected such a significant change between the real estate and golf components on their Land Plan if that change too place prior to November 1910?   I mean, shoot, Jim...at 130 yards of difference they could have put today's 13th hole in there!

Thanks for that image Mike, that's what I was wondering about but not sure I had worded my question well. Looking at it I'm guessing the yellow area is about a third of an acre so barely important in the scheme of things.

I think the Pugh & Hubbard Map didn't reflect Golf House Road as it was eventually built because they didn't know it's exact location because they didn't have the width of 1, 14 and 15 determined yet, even though I think they knew where those holes were going to go.

Your suggestion that the as built GHR was a "dramatic re-route" is what continues to baffle me. The road was never built or in any way fixed in the location from that November Map...it says "Approximate"...so why would you think they had to re-route something that hadn't actually been routed?

If you're serious about the 130 yard question I'll answer it, but I suspect you're not.



Mike, just saw you latest post as I was typing this one...so I'll address it now.

[JESII]

Jim,

Why didn't Francis say they swapped for land all the way up north over 300 yards to College Ave??

I'm not sure what you're asking...I don't think they did. The 3.67 yards of width for the top 75 - 125 yards wouldn't be on anyone's mind as being Merion's at that point in time. In fact unless GHR were to be dug up and not replaced, why would anyone think of it...

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

Remember that the whole literal interp of Francis theory says they had no land north of the south end of Haverford College prior to the swap.

[DMoriarty]

Jim,

Remember that the whole literal interp of Francis theory says they had no land north of the south end of Haverford College prior to the swap.

That is not what it says at all, Mike. Why do you make this stuff up?      It says that they traded for land across from the clubhouse for land they could use, the approx. 130 x 190 triangle were the 15th tee and 16th green are located.

[JESII]

You're both right! So let's move on to the question of...


Why is that a problem Mike?

[Jeff_Brauer]

I got this from Wiki, so take that for what its worth.  I will say that in many respects, David understands the historic method, but the question remains if he applies it in an unbiased way.

The following core principles of source criticism were formulated by two Scandinavian historians, Olden-Jørgensen (1998) and Thurén (1997):[1]
•   Human sources may be relics such as a fingerprint; or narratives such as a statement or a letter. Relics are more credible sources than narratives.
•   Any given source may be forged or corrupted. Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability.
•   The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate historical description of what actually happened.
•   A primary source is more reliable than a secondary source which is more reliable than a tertiary source, and so on.
•   If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.
•   The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.
•   If it can be demonstrated that the witness or source has no direct interest in creating bias then the credibility of the message is increased.

Procedures
Bernheim (1889) and Langlois & Seignobos (1898) proposed a seven-step procedure for source criticism in history:[2]
1.   If the sources all agree about an event, historians can consider the event proved.
2.   However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events in one way, that version will not prevail unless it passes the test of critical textual analysis.
3.   The source whose account can be confirmed by reference to outside authorities in some of its parts can be trusted in its entirety if it is impossible similarly to confirm the entire text.
4.   When two sources disagree on a particular point, the historian will prefer the source with most "authority"—that is the source created by the expert or by the eyewitness.
5.   Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred especially in circumstances where the ordinary observer could have accurately reported what transpired and, more specifically, when they deal with facts known by most contemporaries.
6.   If two independently created sources agree on a matter, the reliability of each is measurably enhanced.
7.   When two sources disagree and there is no other means of evaluation, then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense.

Looking at the fifth bullet point, we see that if many sources say the same thing, they can be given great credibility.

The Merion record contains reports that the golf committee laid out the course with assistance from CBM, and records the time frame as 1911.  Participants including Lesley, Francis as well as close observers like Tillie have told us that Wilson was most responsible for laying out the course, again with assistance from CBM.
On the other hand, we David Moriarty telling us things might be along a different because he doesn’t know if Lesley authored the report, and even though he really has no direct records supporting CBM’s involvement at other times.  He does have Whigham’s eulogy to counteract Alan Wilson’s report, which might have tried to build up Hugh Wilson a bit.

So, we have participants recollections, from immediate to 3 to 50 years later.  And we have David 100 years later and a non-participant.
Looking at the principles above, it appears David likes to forego the number of independent sources that provide a similar message in favor of textural analysis, based on extrapolation beyond (IMHO) a reasonable degree, the assumption of wrong or altered records and the like, none of which he can prove.  Even when small mistakes have been made, he presumes that a few words among hundreds can change the meanings of all accounts dramatically.

I understand he believes CBM was more involved than the record show, and should get more credit. I understand it’s a worthwhile exercise to reexamine history.  The only real  issue here is that after three years, even with no new evidence, he told us his theory is stronger than ever.

I don’t mean to be insulting, and post the above snippet concerning historic methods so others can make their own judgments, which may differ from mine.

Cheers.

[JESII]

Jeff,

One thing i'll mention is that the contemporaneous material (the April board minutes) do not suggest the planning began in 1911...they merely state what had been done prior to the March visit to NGLA.

The January 1911 timeline was created when Hugh Wilson said (in 1916) that's when the committee was formed...which makes legal/technical sense because that's when MCCGA was formed. Frankly, that doesn't have much to do with when work on the plans began because they were discussing the concept of MCCGA a couple months prior to the legal incorporation at least.

[DMoriarty]

Jeffrey Brauer,

For the sake of fairness and completeness you ought to add that until your latest foray to Wikipedia you had no concept whatsoever of what you call "the historic method," and that much of your criticism of me and what you have been demanding of me has been absolutely absurd.  

But then of course instead of learning anything you jump right back into misrepresenting my position, the source material, and now you have something else to misrepresent!  

So far as I know I am the only one who takes Hugh Wilson, Lesley, and Francis at their word!  You pretend they say something they don't.  And the Tillie to which you refer was written in 1934 and was probably a reference to William Flynn trying to steal credit for Wilson's work at Merion (who else?) There is little reason to believe it had anything to do with CBM.  As for Alan Wilson, you misread part of it and ignore other parts!  He said that of those on Merion's Committee Wilson deserves the most credit, and I agree.

And the Whigham Eulogy doesn't need to counteract Wilson's report, because A. Wilson's report doesn't really contradict it.  Besides, WHIGHAM WAS AN EYEWITNESS.  HE WAS THERE.  What does your little excerpt say about eyewitnesses?  

The twisting you are doing is quite pathetic.   Again you broad brush everything into something that it is not to try and make your petty points. My theories are based upon and true to the sources who were there at the time.  I don't need to resort to the likes of attacking Whigham's character or assuming that everything anyone from Merion wrote was just because they were so humble!  

You are too much.   You find some 'History for Dummies' snippet and even that confirms my approach as sound and portrays your past comments as downright foolish, but you go right on twisting everything to try to make me me look bad.

As for your no new evidence claim, think again.  

[JESII]

Mike,

To expand on my question..."Why is that a problem?"...of course there would have been no agreed MCC land North of Haverford College's South border prior to the swap, it's exactly as Francis said...I don't know why you will not take these guys at their word...

[Mike Cirba]

David,  about 30 years after the fact, upon CBM's death, Whigham called Merion (among others) a "Macdonald/Raynor course" despite the fact that there is no record of Raynor ever having visited the property and we know CBM was there twice for one-day visits, ten months apart, before the course was built., and despite the fact that NO ONE EVER claimed that CBM designed it, including CBM himself  over the course of his lifetime or in his comprehensive book, while the course hosted various US Opens and Amateurs and everyone from the local press to TIllinghast credited Hugh Wilson and his committee.

So what do we make of that statement?

Logically, I think the answer is two-fold;  i think it was simply reflective of the fact that Merion, like CBM modelled prior, went into the project looking to copy famous hole principles from abroad but also reflective of the fact that CBM and Whigham provided the Merion Committee with valuable suggestions and advice throughout their design process.

[Mike Cirba]

Mike,

To expand on my question..."Why is that a problem?"...of course there would have been no agreed MCC land North of Haverford College's South border prior to the swap, it's exactly as Francis said...I don't know why you will not take these guys at their word...


Jim,

I absolutely believe Francis at his word.   He swapped land along Golf House Road for land 130x190 up where 16 tee/15 green exists today.

I just think prior to then it was longer and thinner and didn't fit the proposed holes well.

Let me ask you a question...

From the get-go, HDC owned the Johnson Farm which was about 150 yards wide by 327 yards long at the northern end, extending to College Avenue.

We know in December 1910 that HG Lloyd bought the ENTIRE Johnson Farm, including that portion extending to College Avenue.

Do you seriously believe that with that dynamic, and THAT land available to them, that prior to the Francis Swap, that Lloyd and HDC thought that the best way to divide the land between the two entities for golf course and real estate purposes ACTUALLY looked like THIS?  

Why in God's name would they ever truncate their access like that??   At ANY point in the planning process??




If you don't believe that, would you or David please show us what you think the proposed pre-Francis property split looked like?

[Mike Cirba]

David,

We KNOW that Whigham was there one day with CBM to view the property before it was purchased in June 1910.

We also KNOW he came back with CBM on April 7th 1911, almost a year later, for a single day with CBM to help the Merion Committee pick the best of their plans.

We have NO IDEA if he was at NGLA when the Merion Committee visited in March 1911.   If he was, no one thought to mention him.

THAT is what you call an eyewitness to the design process?

Did he see Raynor there too, because he said it was a "Macdonald/Raynor course"?   Was he perhaps hallucinating at the time???

Yet, his obviously erroneous statement delivered 30 years after the fact is supposed to have some credence here when it flies in the face of 30 years of documented contemporaneous history?!?!?!

Eyewitness???!?!?!?   Are you kidding us??    

This is what you call a valid historical research approach???

[Mike Cirba]

Remember that the whole literal interp of Francis theory says they had no land north of the south end of Haverford College prior to the swap.

That is not what it says at all, Mike. Why do you make this stuff up?      It says that they traded for land across from the clubhouse for land they could use, the approx. 130 x 190 triangle were the 15th tee and 16th green are located.


Poppycock, David....bull feathers!   Piles of horse feces, I say.

Are you really contending that they had their eye on land north of the south boundary of Haverford College prior to the execution of your interpretation the Francis Swap?

Can you point out to us where that land might have been.

Please, you are quite gifted at using programs to show us what you think.

Please show us what land north of the south boundary of Haverford College you believe they were considering prior to your interpretation of the Francis Swap.

[DMoriarty]

Whigham didn't call Merion a Raynor course.  As usual these guys read confusion and nonsense into a clear text to try and manipulate the argument.  They seem to think if they can possibly read it to NOT make sense, then that must be the correct reading, and they have the nerve to discount the article as inaccurate.  The only thing inaccurate is their strained interpretation.  
_________________________________

Similarly, Mike's convoluted theory of the small strip of useless land between Haverford College and Golf House Road MAKES NO SENSE.  
-- Why would Merion want to by a strip of land useless to their golf course?    
-- Why would the developer want to give up land (including land fronting the golf course) that they could otherwise develop when the golf course couldn't even use it?
__________________________________

Cirba also drastically mis-measures the width of of the land to suit his purposes.
_________________________

And Whigham was there enough to know whether CBM designed the course, that is for sure!  To argue otherwise is just more ridiculousness!
_________________________

Cirba's last post doesn't even make sense. I was responding to a specific claim he made that was false.  I don't think they were considering anything of substance, but I don't know whether they were going to have responsibility of 1/2 of the access road to College Ave.

[Mike Cirba]

That is not what it says at all, Mike. Why do you make this stuff up?      It says that they traded for land across from the clubhouse for land they could use, the approx. 130 x 190 triangle were the 15th tee and 16th green are located.

David,

Where does Richard Francis say that?

[Mike Cirba]

Whigham didn't call Merion a Raynor course.  As usual these guys read confusion and nonsense into a clear text to try and manipulate the argument.  They seem to think if they can possibly read it to NOT make sense, then that must be the correct reading, and they have the nerve to discount the article as inaccurate.  The only thing inaccurate is their strained interpretation.

David,

Are you telling us that Whigham didn't call Merion a "Macdonald/Raynor" course almost 30 years after the fact, after CBM's death??

Your own essay quotes Whigham, as follows;

The Macdonald-Raynor courses became famous all over America. Among the most famous are Piping Rock, the Merion Cricket Club at Philadelphia, the Country Club of Saint Louis, two beautiful courses at White Sulphur, the Lido (literally poured out of the lagoon), and that equally amazing Yale course at New Haven, which was hewn out of rock and forest at the expense of some seven hundred thousand dollars.

[DMoriarty]

You are a charlatan, Mike.  You left out the explanatory sentence above what you quoted and if you look at the actual document the context is quite clear.  He did not describe Merion as a Raynor course.

As for the rest, read it and figure it out for yourself.

[Mike Cirba]

David,

Are you going to show us what land north of the southern boundary of Haverford College you think Merion was considering prior to your interpretation of the Francis Swap?

While you're at it, perhaps you can tell us why you think they would unnaturally truncate the Johnson Farm property that ran north to College Avenue and that was easily wide and long enough to be useful for golf as it was?

Please show us how you think HDC and Merion had the property divided between the real estate and golf components prior to your interpretation of the Francis Swap.

I believe it will be very illuminating.

[DMoriarty]

I've repeatedly shown you all of that and more.  I am not getting sucked back into rounding up your wild geese.  Read the past threads only this time pay attention.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

Your bright colored map may be the most convincing item yet that the road was simply drawn as a nice curve with no real thought to golf by the land planner, pure and simple.  BTW, I haven't been to that part of the site (even though I have played and toured Merion) but besides lining up the interesection, there are also topographical concerns in locating it in what turned out to be an inconvenient place for golf. 

Basically, if not on top of a hill, or bottom of a valley, intersections need to be far enough from the top of a hill for site distance to prevent accidents.  Someone in that area could probably go confirm that as a reason for why that intersection was located there by the engineers, resulting in the odd triangle.


David,

While you are wrong that I just started looking into the historic process, guessing like you do at most other things you call fact, the question is still legitmate as long as you are telling us that your process and analytical abilities are superior to those of others.

It appears to me that you start the process by ignoring the big picture, which is that participants and first hand observers like Wilson, Francis, Alan Wilson, AWT, and others say Wilson designed the course.  Of course, you do, because your theory really got started in a two fold basis - TMac found one of the many long existing articles linking CBM to Merion that were news to him in 2003, and you found the manifest records for Hugh Wilson's trip contradicted the time frame you had read in Tollhurst, written in 1988.

IMHO, that started your search to see what else was wrong with MCC's history.  All that is fine, but after three years, you still have no first person documentation at all that CBM was involved more than the record shows.  NONE.

And most of your theories depend on those participants and all of their observations and records to be wrong, which would be a fantastic coincidence or conspiracy.  None of the detail twisting YOU do can really change the big picture, and I think you direct the discussion to little details and inconsistencies (which would be natural in four independent accounts) because you don't have any big picture evidence.  Again, NONE that show CBM was more involved than the record shows.

Take for example your argument that Tilly was talking about Flynn. I see your point, but he still says Wilson designed the course!  If he wanted to remind people that Flynn was not the designer of Merion, but that CBM designed it, he would have said so!  Tilly wrote that Wilson was primarily resonsible for designing that course, not CBM.  But, you ignore that and deflect away from the most obvious point.

You argue vociferously around the direct words of Tillie to tell us they means something slightly different that only your historic skills can interpret.

None of your theories has direct documentation, and when asked to show it, you never do.  They all derive from your reading of any inconsistency you can find in the record, and are extrapolated from there.  You cannot show us a fact or document that says CBM was involved between June 1910 and March 1911 (other than a phone call/letter to set up that meeting)

Its that simple.  You can argue all you want but yours is more a docudrama than a historical chase.  Maybe its your Hollywood location and all the entertainment industry work your former law firm did, that makes that sort of reasoning come naturally to you!  I don't know, of course, nor am I really a qualified historian (just like you, TMac and the rest of us) I do suspect that if we brought some history professor in here to grade your essay like an term paper, the grade would range between D and F, but that is just my opinon.

BTW, if you think new evidence has been brought up here recently, take it up with TMac, as he is the one who stated that recently.  I just agreed.

It really is time to end this charade, with you either posting the evidence you say you have, and it should be first person documentary evidence of further CBM involvement or the timing of the triangle, because we have seen none.

I half think you (and maybe TMac) have notes written to be opened after your death that say "We can't believe we were able to turn sane and productive people into insane and unproductive people with our lon running hoax on golf club atlas.com.  Ha Ha! It was just a joke."

[Mike Cirba]

I've repeatedly shown you all of that and more.  I am not getting sucked back into rounding up your wild geese.  Read the past threads only this time pay attention.


David,

I clearly recall your former attempt to show us what you think the 117 acres Merion secured before the Francis Swap looked like (given your theory that Merion and HDC truncated their own property on the northern end, essentially binding their own hands).

The only problem is the land in question you speculated about was nowhere near 117 acres once measured by Bryan Izatt.

That might have been a clue that something was wrong with your theory, don't you think?

Once again, I really think you've brought some interesting focus on the activities of CBM and the Merion Committee through your work, particularly in the spring 1911 timeframe.  

While I don't see CBM's role anywhere near as primary as you do (why, for instance, would Richard Francis not even mention CBM or Whigham if they were the drivers or architects??), at least that is a reasonable position worthy of discussion and even some speculation.

However, this whole "course was routed before November" theory based on that triangle of land formed by an approximate location of a road drawn on  the November Land Plan really is unsupportable and as I said, drowns your baby in its own bath water.   By starting with the premise that Hugh Wilson couldn't have been the architect, as argued against all contemporaneous physical and anecdotal evidence to the contrary by Tom MacWood, you instead compromise the validity of your overall essay because your whole premise becomes that the routing had to have been done prior to November 1910, which the facts simply don't support.

Perhaps instead of golf course fronting homes along the border HDC really wanted homes facing McFadden and Catherwood's places as a novelty marketing idea??  

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

This is actually one of the kinds of details that I am actualling railing against arguing about as proof one way or another, but here goes:

I have seen roads aligned slightly away from other peoples property because they won't pay their half of the road.  At MCC, in some ways, giving McFadden and Haverford College access to the back of their property might have made sense.  On the other hand, we know that Golf House Road ended up half on MCC property and half on the development (in and of itself, perhaps enough to make up the extra three acres, as we showed years ago, but off point here). 

So, in addition to topo considerations, alignment considerations, etc. allowing or denying access to McFadden may have played a role in that Nov alignment.

As you know, I have felt all along that this alignment was made by the developer (who, as we know owned and controlled the land at this time) for his own reasons.  MCC may have realized the triangle was useless as aligned though, and thus inserted the right to realign the road.  It wouldn't actually take a full routing to understand that, necessarily.

Or, they just did it because they hadn't started routing at all.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Not that it means anything necessarily, but I note that the ROW width of golf house road is narrower than Turnbridge to the north.  Odd, as they are the same kinds of roads by the same developer.  Another detail for us to wonder about.
Also, it looks like perhaps the intersection might have anticipatec McFadden getting half a ROW. I can't tell from this last iteration because Mike's colorful artwork covers it up.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Cirba,

Could you do me a favor and retitle this thread 

Or, bifurcate its title