"Chick Evans grew up playing at Edgewater Golf Club, and subsequently joined both Glen View and Exmoor."
Dave:
I would certainly hope Chick Evans was a significant member of Glen View because the club had a specific room in the clubhouse just dedicated to him and some of his memorablia.
But you never know the extent some of these clubs might go to create lore and legends and myths and mythology. We thank the likes of MacWood and Moriarty for pointing out that Hugh Wilson does not deserve any credit or the credit given him for being responsible for the original routing and design of Merion East. We have recently come across some clues that may indicate that Hugh Wilson may never have existed at all.
It is possible, or perhaps I should say, not impossible, that he was simply a fictitious character created merely to promote the inherently independent ethos of the club, or perhaps by some from Merion in the beginning to create perhaps more interesting lore, more grandiose legends or even semi-humorous hoaxes intended to confuse most historians and identify only the very best historical analysts a century or so later. It takes only the very best imaginable historian to identify these things and to be able to explain why everyone who has read the entire history of Merion East for a hundred years has misread and misunderstood what really happened a century ago.
I think I may now try to convince Merion to rewrite their architectural history assigning all architectural credit to Macdonald and Whigam for routing and designing Merion East for MCC and being the "driving force" behind it all, and that there probably never was a Hugh Wilson and his member committee. As to who constructed it to Macdonald/Whigam plan if there was no Hugh Wilson, it appears we need to find a constructor and it very well may be Fred Pickering, the man the records show actually was hired by MCC to construct the course to the routing and design plan.
Matter of fact, Fred Pickering's history at Merion is well documented as being one affected by the sauce of Johnny Barleycorn. It's perhaps logical to assume that it may've been Pickering who during a liquor induced hallucination dreamed up Hugh Wilson and his committee and in a moment of mischievious mirth, MCC just went with that story.
Oh, and what about HH Barker? Did he have something to do with routing and designing Merion East too? Since there has never been any actual indication of that in any of Merion's records or in its archives, except perhaps from some non-golfing inconsequential real estate agent out to steal the thunder of that greatest of all American financiers, Horatio Gates Lloyd, by planting some inaccurate newspaper reports in November 1910, how about if I try to convince Merion to rewrite their architectural history of 1909-1912) to assign HH Barker the same kind of credit that little girl on the old "Shake n' Bake" chicken commericial says she should get for producing the chicken dinner-----eg "An Aah hept."