Wilson and the Committee visit MacDonald and NGLA . . .

[JESII]

Exactly my points Tom.

There has been so little proof offered through these hundreds and hundreds of posts it is embarassing.

DM has thrown a bunch of s**t in the air, some of it may stick, some of it will not. Big deal! I was as guilty as you and the others for a while, but I realized he put all of his eggs in one basket...He was driving for some concrete evaluation of what was on the ground on September 14, 1912. His goal there was to solidify some degree of contribution from Charles Blair Macdonald. He has never stated what degree CBM may have contributed, and I believe he does not even want to quanitify the contribution.

The reality is, the golf course has changed so much right from the beginning that it would be perfectly impossible to cast a snap shot of the course at any one point in time from Sep 1911 through, what, about 1934. David is trying to peg a label on a phantom being. There is no definable golf course at any point that CBM was around. Who knows what changed? Nobody today can illustrate the product at seeding and chronicle each step that resulted in what we see today. You and Wayne can certainly do as much of that as anyone, but I bet the two of you couldn't confidently tell me what the course looked like exactly in 1912.

[TEPaul]

"You and Wayne can certainly do as much of that as anyone, but I bet the two of you couldn't confidently tell me what the course looked like exactly in 1912."

Sully:

Maybe we can't tell with certainty what every detail about it looked like in Sept 1911 but I think we can come as close as anyone and we can tell pretty much what it looked like not that long after that. Wayne is the one who really knows the details but you're not going to find him on this website talking to David Moriarty again, at least not about Merion.  

[David Stamm]

And if they bought it in 1909 how do we even know that Wilson didn't go see him in 1909? That sure does jibe with that newspaper report that NGLA was still under construction when Wilson visited it.

 

Tom, this may shed some light, as you brought out, what Tolhurst wrote in the club history when he said the course was under construction when Wilson visited.

[Neil_Crafter]

In The Australian newspaper yesterday was the story that the National Archives in the UK have digitised the outgoing ship passenger lists from the UK - the years 1890 to 1899 are now accessible and in six months time will have all the years from there up to 1960. This will be accessible at www.ancestors-onboard.com

Apparently they have had a team of 125 workers digitising the 1.5million pages of documents - phew!

So soon there will be a way of double checking Wilson's UK visit or was it visits?! And any others of interest. Not sure what charges will apply to search though.
cheers Neil

[Neil_Crafter]

A small correction, the web address is www.ancestorsonboard.com, the newspaper got it wrong. The early info is also searchable on www.findmypast.com

You need to pay to search the records in detail and get transcripts or images of the manifests, but I was able to search Hugh Wilson and find there were a number of men with this name who exited the UK for the USA in the years 1890-99, one in 1899 from Liverpool to Philadelphia. I didn't pay to find out the details of the ship and the man's age, but could be a young Wilson. Also found a George Crump left the UK in 1898 from Southampton to NY. So for those with the time and money to search these records in detail there may be a lot worth gleaning, and even more when they add the early 1900's.
cheers Neil

[TEPaul]

Neil:

Thanks for the info. If that was in fact Merion's Hugh I. Wilson departing from Liverpool to Philadelphia in 1899 he would've been app a 20 year old student at Princeton University. He graduated in 1902 and I believe he was the captain of the golf team.

As I said earlier on one of those Merion threads it was definitely not unusual for men like Wilson to be going to Europe at that age. Matter of fact, I think it would've been fairly unusual if at age 32 it was the first time he'd been to Europe. The same was probably true of a guy like George Crump.

[TEPaul]

"And here you are, at it again, calling me a liar in the very post where you offer me a “deal.” "

I offered to make a deal with you where I'd take off any posts insulting you if you'd take off posts insulting me and you didn't even acknowledge the offer. I'd say that's pretty indicative.

This kind of talk should be on the IM anyway where people on this DG don't have to be bothered with it but you refused to do that too saying you wanted everything on this DG. I'd say that's pretty indicative too.

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,

I am glad Wayne finally went down to check out the date of the purchase.  It is ironic, though, given that when I suggested you guys do this, I believe you scolded me for pursuing such arcane and pointless avenues  of research, and insisted that the land had obviously been purchased in 1910.  Nonetheless, it is nice to see you guys finally thinking a little bit outside the box.

I do have some questions regarding the records.  For example, who exactly bought the property in 1909?    I’ve read that it was a small group of members or maybe even a single member (Lloyd?) who made the purchase.  Was it Merion itself that bought the property in 1909, or the Merion Cricket Club Golf Association, or an individual, or a group of individuals?    And did they also secure the other parcel (on a bluff overlooking the river) they were considering?"

You have some questions of us, do you Professor Moriarty? Do you suppose you might be able to find out some of this stuff for yourself?  

[TEPaul]

"That being said, I'll be glad to start fresh and discuss politely from here on out.  Will you agree as well?"

I already said I would. That was what my offer to make a deal with you was all about. What did you think I was talking about?

[TEPaul]

"Your wild speculation about what this may mean contradicts what we already know.  For one example, we know that Wilson says he went to study after the committee was formed, and that the committee was not formed until 1911."

Wild speculation??

I would definitely not say we know that committee was formed in 1911. Wilson also said in that report of his that Merion West began construction in March 1912 but we do know the club didn't even buy the ground the course is on until the fall of 1912. The course did not begin construction until the spring of 1913, and that is a fact.

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

I hope the spirit of civility reigns here, but I also hope everyone keeps a sense of humor and kidding among ourselves.  

This site would be dreadfully boring otherwise.

I've given you my definition of significant as I see it being applied to "course creation".   While you may think it's too high a bar, could you please provide yours?   I think a lot of us are still wondering exactly what you mean, specifically, when you contend that M&W made a "significant contribution" to the creation of the course.

Also, just so you know, I just googled "Momentous Definition", and the definition and the "atom bomb" reference were what came up.   I just used what was available.

[TEPaul]

David Moriarty:

Contact me on the IM and tell me what posts that refer to you you'd like me to take off this thread or off this website and I'll do the same with you. But I'll tell you right now if the part on your post #444 directed at me and post #468 that's directed at Wayne and me is on this thread by this time tomorrow you can forget the offer because you and I will have no deal to start afresh.

[TEPaul]

"I think a lot of us are still wondering exactly what you mean, specifically, when you contend that M&W made a "significant contribution" to the creation of the course."

Mike:

Do you really expect to stop wondering about that anytime soon? Do you expect anyone on here to stop wondering about that anytime soon? I think all of us have been wondering about that for about the last two weeks and about the last fifty pages despite having asked endlessly in all kinds of ways and from all kinds of directions.

And despite having asked endlessly, David Moriarty continues to maintain that we here have constantly minimized and discounted what the Wilson's themselves have said in two reports on the creation of Merion about the specific advise and involvement of M&W.

I just don't get this at all, I never have and I don't believe any of us ever will.

What is really going on here?

[Phil_the_Author]

Neil,

You let us know that, "In The Australian newspaper yesterday was the story that the National Archives in the UK have digitised the outgoing ship passenger lists from the UK - the years 1890 to 1899 are now accessible and in six months time will have all the years from there up to 1960. This will be accessible at www.ancestors-onboard.com... Apparently they have had a team of 125 workers digitising the 1.5million pages of documents - phew!"

I decided to look this site up since it would definitely aid me in my Tillinghast research. Tiil and his wife Lillian, along with his father and mother, made three trips to the UK spending a great deal of time in Scotland. The trips were made in 1895, 1898 & 1901.

Using only the name "Tillinghast" in the search engine brought up 31 instances of a "Tillinghast" coming to America between 1890-1899.

Not one of them matches Tilly, his wife, his mother or his father!

Neither under Tillinghast or any of the references with initials match nor can possibly be any of them.

We know the dates of his trips as there are articles written by Tilly himself with the dates included, and if anyone would know at leats the years that he went he would, and also family correspondences confirming the same.

I would guess that after scanning 1.5 million pages that skipping a page or two, or more, may have happened. Either that or it is not as complete as we are led to believe.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul & Dave Moriarty,

You're both good guys, keenly interested in and passionate about golf course architecture.

Argue the issues, not each other.

[TEPaul]

Philip:

It appears what you are saying or implying is that in your opinion these ship manifests that David Moriarty is trying to pass off as basically infallible or proof that someone was not in GB if they can't be found on those manifest listings is anything but infallible or proof.

On the face of it I would definitely tend to agree with your sense of this, my man.

When David Moriarty is confronted with this information and this logic his only response seems to be to continually state that he knows he's right and that everyone else must be wrong.

I'd definitely like to know how anyone on here should handle someone like that.

[Bryan Izatt]

Bryan Izatt,

I do not think that both sides agree on the basic facts.  For one thing, TEPaul and Mike Cirba seem intent on creating a second, earlier overseas trip for Wilson, even though they never gave this possibility any such thought prior to the discovery of the 1912 trip.  

Well at various points in time I thought the"facts" were agreed to.  A lot of the speculation on both sides- now that's another matter

For another thing, one need only take a look at their smart-aleck posts on the Rustic Canyon thread to get an idea of just what they think of Macdonald’s potential involvement.  

I have enough trouble sticking to this one thread.  Let's leave other threads out of it - although I understand they annoy you.  The issue I'm trying to put to rest is the one of M&W's "contribution", not who threw sticks and stones at who.

As for your attempt to clarify using definitions, I appreciate it, but am afraid that this too will fail.  Mike Cirba apparently likes “monumental” better, and likens the meaning ot that dropping the atom bomb.

It doesn't have to fail.  It wasn't intended for Mike - it was for you.  Let's see if we can have success with you, and leave Mike and the rest for later

He also immediately equates “significance” with Macdonald having actually designed the course, because to Mike “significant” means ”doing the routing, creating hole strategies, adding man-made features, etc.”

Let's stick to your definition, not Mike's.

Macdonald’s involvement was significant by the definitions you provided, at least according to those who were there, especially Hugh and Alan Wilson.   But their word is apparently not good enough for this crowd.

Could you tell me which of the definitions of "significant" you are referring to. Is it:

3. momentous and influential: having a major or important effect

4. substantial: relatively large in amount

If it is 3, and you're claiming a "major or important effect" do you have any facts beyond Wilson's statement the M&W's advice was helpful?  Could you describe how that translates to major and important, and what you think it affected, and how you draw that conclusion.

If it is 4, then how you arrived at the relatively large amount.

It's your claim that M&W had a significant contribution.  I'd like to get at your meaning in saying that - not Mike's or Tom's or Wayne's.  If we could nail this down then maybe some of the rancor would go away.
________________________________

[Patrick_Mucci]

David Moriarty,

While this thread has been interesting, I think the flaw in your theory is as follows.

First, if you present a theory, the burden of proof rests with you.  You have to prove your theory in order to validate it.  

The INABILITY to DISPROVE a theory DOESN"T validate it.

If your theory was that CBM deserved more credit for the work you allege he did, you have to specifically quantify and qualify the work so that a judgement can be made relative to the credit he should or shouldn't get.

Absent specific supporting evidence, your theory fails.

While the production of a manifest dated May 12,1912 is interesting, one can't conclude that HIW never set foot in the UK prior to that date.

If HIW was never in the UK prior to 05-12-12 it doesn't disqualify him and the committee as the designers of Merion.

And, it doesn't mean that they had to have the direct assistance of CBM for routing, design and construction.

I've enjoyed the exercise, the discussion and debate, but, just because questions remain unanswered, doesn't mean that your theory is valid.

If someone produced hard evidence of CBM's specific involvement in routing, designing and constructing Merion that would be powerful support for your theory, but, absent that supporting documentation, your theory is merely a dubious hypothesis.

It's unfortunate that you and others have come to swords point through 14 pages of debate.

I'm willing to listen to your theories, but, rather than disprove them, the burden of proof rests with you.

But, I've enjoyed the exercise.

Will your next theory claim that # 6 green at NGLA was originally a misaligned Biarritz ?  

[TEPaul]

Patrick:

That's a good, comprehensive and measured summation of these Merion threads begun and elongated by David Moriaty.

However, you forgot to mention something. I think there is a wealth of evidence, undeniable evidence, and there always has been who it was who created that golf course---was its architect, in fact. There is obviously a very good reason that Macdonald's name has never been attached to Merion with Wilson. And I do agree with you that these 'eulogy' attributions by Whigam for both Raynor for Merion West and Macdonald for the Merions sure as hell is strange.

On the other hand, when one gets into investigating the entire evolution of Merion East's architecture to that date when most everyone who knows the course agrees it was finally finished (1931-34) there is no question at all that until fairly recently the significant involvement and work of William Flynn was never fully appreciated or recognized---not until the last few years.

Now it is and with some completely documented evidence---eg some really detailed plans and drawings from Flynn.

The club is completely comfortable with this now that some truly factual evidence emerged out of the woodwork having been missing for fifty five years. For this, we and the club can thank Wayne Morrison most of all. It's a shame that he has dropped out of these threads and discussions but he is totally disgusted by this charade carried on by the author of these Merion/M&W threads for the last few weeks.

Merion, is a great golf course, it's one of the most interesting in the world and its time and place in history is something we should never stop looking into and appreciating. I just don't think a a discussion and certainly a debate on the "significnance" of M&W's advice and involvemnt needs to continue. I think all the participants on this thread are really in agreement on what M&W did for Merion. It just seems like David Moriarty is totally unwilling to admit this. Now he appears to be going back and just distorting what others have said on here. I'll give you another good example of that. I guess that's the only way he can continue to argue on these threads and keep them going.

[Neil_Crafter]

Philip
I certainly can't vouch for the thoroughness of the scanning done in the UK's National Archives, however, with the resources they have put into it I think every manifest they hold would be scanned - if there are gaps it would be I assume because the original documents were missing and never archived. Can't imagine they would randomly omit scanning a manifest here or there.
cheers Neil

[TEPaul]

Neil:

I'd doubt they'd be randomly scanning manifests either, but Phil Young is absolutely right to both question and insist that the reliability of that manifest resource be put through its paces on here. Obviously the only reason he's insisting on that is because someone else on here is presenting these manifests as proof that someone from the USA could not have been in GB at a certain time. If we can prove that someone was definitely in GB at a particular time and they don't show up on those manifests then it certainly does call into question the accuracy and reliability of those digitized manifest lists.

For instance, I can believe I can reliably place Geo Crump in GB at a certain date even if I don't know when he went to GB or when he returned.

[TEPaul]

"Bryan Izatt,
I do not think that both sides agree on the basic facts.  For one thing, TEPaul and Mike Cirba seem intent on creating a second, earlier overseas trip for Wilson, even though they never gave this possibility any such thought prior to the discovery of the 1912 trip."

David Moriarty:

I'd say that's a pretty good misrepresentation of what Mike Cirba and I have said on here (or Wayne or anyone else).

As I'm sure everyone who's amazingly followed these threads can tell none of us have ever been aware that Wilson was in GB in 1912. I'm pretty sure Merion was never aware of that in modern times. One thing that revelation does explain better to me is where this rumor that has been in the Merion history books that Wilson almost sailed on the Titanic came from. Previously I had always wondered how that rumor could be up to two years off the date the club thought he was in GB.

And then we have Alan Wilson's report that said; 'The land for the East Course was found in 1910 and as a first step, Mr Wilson was sent abroad to study the most famous links in Scotland and England'.

That certainly sounds to me like Wilson went to GB before the planning and construction of the East Course began in 1911.

Furthermore, I looked like you and perhaps others were willing to assume that Merion bought their land along Ardmore Ave in perhaps late 1910 and that jibbed with Macdonald's apparently documented trip to Philadelphia perhaps to pass on the suitability of the land for a course for Merion.

But now we find that the club's representatives bought this land in June of 1909, and not in the latter half of 1910. This is quite a differential in time and logically it should be looked into as what it might mean about Wilson's trip to NGLA and his first trip to study architecture for the club in Scotland and England.

So naturally we would continue to try to determine if Wilson went to GB before the course began. We're not trying to "create" an early first trip, we're merely looking at a time when the club said he was over there.

And the best you can do is label all this 'wild speculation'? That's pretty amazing and only shows me you are out to whatever the hell this "hypothesis" of yours is at all costs.  

Personally, I think it's pretty odd of David Moriarty to just conclude that the trip in 1912 must have been Wilson's first one. But I guess I can understand why he tried to do that---eg it  would have helped his "hypothesis" that M&W must have done for the creation of Merion East than had been previously thought.  

[Bryan Izatt]

Tom,

A random thought.  Can you speculate on what was happening from June 1909 when the property was purchased and early 1911 when the Committee was formed.  That's more than a year and a half of what appears to be land lying fallow.  I would think there would have been some activity around designing the course

[Andy Hughes]

And then we have Alan Wilson's report that said; 'The land for the East Course was found in 1910 and as a first step, Mr Wilson was sent abroad to study the most famous links in Scotland and England'.

Tom, you said yesterday (2 days ago?) that Wayne had been to the recorders office and found the land had actually been purchased in 1909 and not 1910 as had been thought.  

Is it just me, or were those guys back then REALLY bad about accuracy?

If the land was purchased in 1909, and Alan said the first step was to send Hugh abroad, either he was way off if the trip didn't occur until 1912 or perhaps the 1912 trip was not the first trip abroad.  But is anyone aware of anything at all that shows he made a trip before 1912 other than Alan's comment?
I am starting to have little confidence in the writings of these guys.  

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
A random thought.  Can you speculate on what was happening from June 1909 when the property was purchased and early 1911 when the Committee was formed.  That's more than a year and a half of what appears to be land lying fallow.  I would think there would have been some activity around designing the course."

Bryan:

Sure I could speculate but I don't see the purpose of doing that at this point and certainly not on here since every single little issue and fact seems to have gotten to be a point of adversity between us and David Moriarty.

But I do think there are a lot of other potential avenues and places to look into back then to try to determine some facts that might help corroborate what may've been going on with Merion and its people regarding what their future plans were to be.

There very well may be some real significance in the fact the land was bought a year earlier than anyone seems to have realized but what that significance turns out to be I do not know at this point or want to speculate on. All I can say, as you obviously sense is a year or more is a lot of time in this particular framework. But what it means I don't know yet. Maybe it will turn out to mean a lot or maybe nothing much at all.