"Still, if past is prologue, then my understanding of what happened with the various land exchanges and swaps is probably more accurate than theirs even though they have the documents and I do not. These guys haven't a clue as to how to read these documents, and in the past they have just assumed documents said what they hoped that they said.
- Last year TEPaul claimed that one such deed conclusively proved that Merion had purchased the land for the golf course in June 1909. I didn't believe him at the time, but when I asked him for details he basically said that is for me to know and you to find out. You don't expect us to do all your research for you, do you?
- Wayne apparently thought the same deed not only documented the sale of the golf course land, but a tract of probably over 1000 acres of land in total, stretching from the railroad almost all the way to the West Course.
-In reality the deed described a conveyance of a 70 acre parcel north of the course from one investment vehicle (a trust) to another (a corporation) for negligible consideration ($1.) Likely the same parties were principles of each, and none were affiliated with Merion or Lloydd."
We would appreciate it if anyone on these threads, including David Moriarty, could point out to us whatever the mistakes are in interpretation we've made in the last year or at any time about the financial dealings of Horatio Gates Lloyd and his MCC investor group previous to the finalization of the purchase of the Merion East ground.
To do that those mistakes should not just be referred to on a thread indirectly, the way David Moriarty did above; they should be found, and brought up and cited. That will give us the opportunity to correct them. That's the only way we can deal with them properly and correct mistakes we've made in the past. Furthermore, we have no problem at all correcting our mistakes and admitting that we made them, and more importantly, in my opinion, why we made them!!
We want to rid the Merion historical record of any and all inaccuracies and inconsistencies we can find. We want to get Merion's historical record as accurate as it can be, and certainly Merion does too despite what some people say in some accusatory ways to the contrary.
What we are trying to do at the moment is chronicle all the details of the move of MCC's golf course from Haverford to Ardmore in the years 1909 until about 1912 or 1913 as accurately and in as much detail as possible, and old MCC board meeting minutes really help in that effort.
Whatever it turns out to be---a report just to be placed in Merion G.C.'s archives for serious researchers and interested parties to access and/or an essay to be put on here in an IMO piece I can't say at the moment.
We just want Merion's history reflected accurately and so does Merion G.C. If that means Macdonald/Whigam routed and designed Merion East or whether they didn't, it matters not to Merion or us. The best proof of whatever happened needs to be produced, though, and it looks to us like MCC board meeting minutes are doing that in more detail than we at first imagined before they were recently discovered (we did not even know they still existed).
Things like IMO pieces or even the details of these threads are not necessarily accurate accounts of Merion's architectural history and they do tend to get on other entities of the Internet such as Google and can create revisionist thinking about Merion's architectural history.
I don't think anyone wants to see that. We don't and Merion doesn't. All that can do is create additional inaccuracies in the future.
At the moment we believe the essay "The Missing Faces of Merion" is incorrect in its premises and conclusions of varous events such as the time Francis' call to Lloyd took place and when the consequent landswap and the creation of the 15th and 16th or the last five holes took place on a plan or in fact. At the moment we believe the conclusion in the essay that Macdonald routed Merion East in 1910 and Hugh Wilson and his committee merely constructed the course to that plan in 1911 is also historically incorrect. We would like to prove that by producing acceptable evidence that the creation of Merion East did not happen that way. The intention or a report or essay is not necessarily to prove some other essay incorrect but only to chronicle the events of this time as accurately and in as much detail as can be done. If and when that's done, then people's interpretations of what it means is just up to them.
We think the financial dealings of Horatio Gates Lloyd in this entire move to Ardmore are most important to the accuracy of Merion Ardmore's story as well and we want to get that correct in as much detail as possible.
We think we have good material to chronicle all of this as accurately as it can be done at this time. At the moment, what we do not seem to have is any evidence of why Merion golf club's two history books (two separate editons of Desmond Tolhurst's Merion history) mention that Hugh Wilson went abroad in 1910 and what's behind the story that he brought back sketches and drawings and surveyors maps from abroad. We have never seen any evidence of those things and we have never seen even a mention of them in any way by anyone present at the time of the creation of either Merion course including during Merion East's approximately 20 year architectural development.
It is certainly possible that a story like that one is simply a result of oral history and nothing more. But we will try to trace the mention of it in writing as far back as possible. It is certainly possible that stories like that found their way into the written record of Merion East as late as 25-30 years ago and if that's the case that too will be reported in and essay or report.
That's what we intend to do and I'm confident that more accuracy and more detail to Merion's architectural history will be the result. Whatever we produce will probably go into the club's really well organized archives and there is a procedure that is not exclusionary to serious researchers to access those archives. At the moment, I'm not sure what MCC's access policy or procedure is, and it's possible, at the moment, they may not even have one. But one of the world's best archivists is apparently about to work on MCC's archives as he did on Merion G.C.'s in the last 5-6 years.
As for the on-going arguments and accusations on here about access to the archives of either club, certainly promoted by one contributor on this website, I'll say no more. I don't make policy on access for either club, but I will abide by whatever it is as I would suggest everyone else on here or elsewhere do the same.