Who is J. Franklin Meehan?
Tom,
I'm not sure how well this will cut and paste...I'm guessing the images won't make the trip, but the following is from the book we wrote based on our Cobb's Creek research. I believe I sent you a copy a few months back...I'd be happy to re-send if you have interest.
John Franklin Meehan (aka J. Franklin Meehan, Frank Meehan) – Meehan’s father Thomas came from England to become a famed landscape horticulturalist, author, and businessman and son “Frank” soon followed in his father’s footsteps and became a partner in the family business during his late teens. His father’s fame led him to be selected to create the Landscape Plans and Horticultural Exhibit at the United States Centennial celebration in 1876 and after his death, even had a plant named after him, Meehania Cordata. During his life, he was heavily involved in the effort to create city parks, and was on the City of Philadelphia advisory board that was responsible for the creation of Fairmount Park.
During the 1880’s, Meehan stated, perhaps somewhat prophetically;
“I once looked upon these breathing-places for the poor in large cities with the eye of an artist, valuing them primarily as spots of beauty and ornament to the city. I look upon them now as playgrounds and places where all kinds of physical recreation can be enjoyed, and I leave the details of garden beauty and the ornamentation of the city to take a subordinate place.”
After his father’s death in 1901, Frank Meehan grew his father’s successful business into the areas of city planning, land planning, and agronomy. He was also quite the sportsman, spending much of his time hunting and fishing in the outdoors. Owner of a sprawling turf nursery just outside the city, it wasn’t long before Meehan took to golf…with fervor.
Meehan was one of the better amateur golfers in the Philadelphia area (another of the “amateur architects”), and although he wasn’t at quite the top echelon with fellows like Crump and Ab Smith, he did compete well and often in regional tournaments.
While we don’t know exactly how and when Meehan began his love affair with the game, we know that in 1907 Meehan and some businessmen friends started a golf club called Edge Hill Country Club. The nine-hole course was on land that Meehan owned, and he designed and constructed the course personally. He also served as the Club President from 1907 until 1915, by which time the club had moved to a new site and was now known as North Hills Country Club.
In 1911, the club outgrew the modest original course and voted to move and build a new course, first of nine holes, then a year or so later one of 18 holes, both which Meehan also designed. In May of 1911, A.W. Tillinghast wrote;
The baby member of the Golf Association of Philadelphia—the North Hills Country Club—gives promise of great development. The club is a little over a year old and is situated in the famous Whitemarsh Valley at Remlu, which is the first village north of Edge Hill. The entire property consists of 240 acres of beautiful, rolling land, through which a stream of clear spring water runs practically the entire length of the course, and which is made use of continually. The course measures 3,117 yards, and the nine holes par at 36. Most of the land was under farm cultivation, but much wild growth had to be cleared away.
Mr. J. Franklin Meehan is president of the club and his great knowledge of turf and grasses will prove of immense value to the new course.
According to the North Hills Country Club history;
Moving to the new club house necessitated the re-design of the golf course and forced the club to negotiate for additional land. Some ground was dropped (the old 6th and 7th holes were transferred back to the association) and new acreage was acquired and Meehan designed a new 9 hole golf course to accommodate the new club house location.
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The next year, on February 6, 1912, the club now having 100 restless members who were each paying $25.00 per year dues, it was voted that North Hills should be an 18 hole course. Some additional acreage, the present 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and parts of the 2nd and 8th holes were acquired from the Land Association and a new lease was negotiated
Meehan, who was now in his third year as president contracted to design and build the present golf course for the sum of $1,625.00. An attempt was made to keep the old nine in use while the new layout was being constructed but the financial burden was too much. Meehan opened the new course for play on July 12, 1913, admittedly before it was ready for use.
While we don’t know much about Meehan’s golf architectural talents or design acumen at this stage of his career, we do know that it wasn’t long before he brought in some help with North Hills in the form of Hugh Wilson and Ab Smith in 1916. Tillinghast alluded to the fact that Meehan was just learning when he wrote in August 1916;
“North Hills plan a number of changes on their course, which although possessing great natural advantages, always has been rather crude. The clubhouse, too, will be improved considerably.”
Given Hugh Wilson’s keen interest in all things agronomic, it is certain that he and Meehan had much to discuss in that area, and it is likely to assume that Wilson shared design concepts with Meehan, as well. What we do know is that they built a very enjoyable, challenging course at North Hills that still stands today much as it did in 1916.
We also know that Meehan went on to practice golf course architecture largely on his own for at least the next fifteen or so years. Although he worked primarily in Eastern Pennsylvania, he also built courses in upstate New York, and as far south as Tampa, Florida. His latter effort still exists today in the form of the “Babe Zaharias Golf Course” which was originally known as Forest Hills Country Club when Meehan designed it in 1925.
In Eastern Pennsylvania, we know that Meehan’s architectural resume included;
LuLu Country Club (first nine holes with Warren Webb) - 1915
Ashbourne Country Club – 1923
Sandy Run Country Club – 1923
Spring-Ford Country Club – 1924
Paxon Hollow (with Francis Warner) – 1926
Berwick Country Club - 1926
Brookside Country Club (Allentown) – 1929
While none of these courses are of the status of the top echelon of Philadelphia-area clubs, they are all fun to play, with sound, very natural golf holes, and all are challenging with some degree of quirkiness created by the imaginative use of natural landforms. For instance, at both LuLu and Brookside, Meehan created short, dangerous par threes inside of quarry walls.
Meehan was dynamic, outgoing, and seemingly always energetically active. This brief description from James Finegan in his “Centennial Tribute to Golf in Philadelphia” certainly provides some insight into the man.
“J. Franklin Meehan was a born entrepreneur He dearly loved to start something from scratch. In some instances, as at Ashbourne and Spring-Ford, a new golf cub that had aquired ground would call him in to lay out the course, a rewarding assignment that enabled him to put his personal imprint on the raw land. But it was not quite so satisfying as conceiving the idea for a club, finding the property, laying out the course, bringing together a number of kindred souls, and actually running the club during its formative years. This he did at North Hills. And now, more than 15 years later and virtually next door, he undertook to do it again (at Sandy Run).”
We also know that John Franklin Meehan was a lifelong advocate of junior golf and largely responsible for the creation of the “Junior” division of the Golf Association of Philadelphia, as well as associated junior tournaments for both boys and girls Perhaps it was partially due to his own children’s involvement in the game that served as his stimulus and motivation, which was reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer in January, 1917;
Still, Mrs. Meehan could not have been playing the game for very long given this February, 1915 account and when one sees the next story, which has lived on through the subsequent ages, Mrs. Meehan may have retrospectively wished that she’d remained a golf widow for life!
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Prominent golfer though she may have been, it appears Mrs. Meehan did have at least one nemesis hole, as described in this humorous story by Tillinghast in 1915. It appears that she was nothing if not persistent, although it must have been quite the delay for the groups following her;
The following report from the 1922 Golf Association of Philadelphia annual meeting gives some idea of the passion and idealistic zeal that Meehan exhibited in his quest for promoting and growing the game through junior golf. It should be noted that these visionary men were quite aware that the real growth in junior golf could only come in earnest through making the game available through the creation and support of public courses like Cobb’s Creek. It is therefore hardly surprising to find that he was such an advocate and volunteered his time to help with the creation of the first public courses in the city.
It seems likely that his passion for junior golf, for growing the game he loved, as well as his direct family involvement with the Fairmount Park Commission would have been prime motivators leading to Meehan’s involvement with the Cobb’s Creek project. The extent of Meehan’s actual involvement in the design and construction efforts at Cobb’s Creek is somewhat uncertain, only because there were no contemporaneous accounts of his work. This is perhaps due to the fact that it wasn’t until the mid-20s that Meehan was actually known in the region as a “golf architect”, and probably earlier in his career was viewed simply as a successful businessman and sportsman with an expert agronomic, planning, and horticultural background who had established a thriving golf club in the suburbs. It seems possible that perhaps Hugh Wilson brought him over to help with the agronomic efforts, especially as planned timetables for opening in the fall of 1915 were not met due to “grow-in” issues, but that is purely speculative.
In any case we know that by August, 1924, when work began in earnest to build additional public courses in Philadelphia at Juniata (Tacony) as well as a second eighteen at Cobb’s Creek (Karakung), the following news item appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Ledger;
The city will be saved a big fee for a golf architect, in the program for the erection of a course in Tacony, Mr. Corson said (Corson is the Chief Engineer at this time of Fairmount Park and had been assistant to Jesse Vogdes in 1916). He announced that he himself, a golfer, and Frank Meehan, Hugh Wilson and A. H. Smith, all members of the Philadelphia Golf Association, would probably design the course.
"Mr. Meehan, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Smith gave their aid in laying out the course at Cobbs Creek," stated the chief engineer, "and I am sure that they will help us with the Tacony links."
While we may never know the true extent of his involvement, it is clear that his relationship with Wilson and Smith was a close one and it seems that he was simply another of the “experts” who helped the city with the design, construction, and agronomic work necessary to build Cobb’s Creek.