Another Merion thread

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

I think HH Barker might have designed the really good "middle era" iteration of Shinnecock that preceded the Macdonald/Raynor iteration of Shinnecock.

Do you know anything about that?

I don't know anything about that. From what I understand Shinnecock was redesigned in 1913, about three years prior to Raynor's overhaul of the course, but I have no idea who was responsible. The timing is not quite right for Barker IMO.

[Tom MacWood]

Dan
I really don't see the purpose of trying to disqualify an entire article because of a couple inconsequential errors. There were two other similar articles written in November, in the Phila Recorder and the Phila Inquirer, that also have small errors. Should we throw those articles out too? The main problem you have with the 11/24 is the announcement Barker had been secured to lay out the course. Actually in some ways the 11/24 article got more right than the other two. For example it reports MCC had secured 117 acres (as opposed to 130 acres in the other two) and the cost per acre of $726 per acre. I think it is obvious the authors of all these articles were getting information from an inside source. We have gone over the articles endlessly, I see no need to go over the same ground again.

I don't understand your focus on what was open for play June 1910. I've told you what projects were either completed or in process of completion at that time, and its an impressive list. I think even you would have to admit that. Whatever you believe was or wasn't completed it does not change the fact that he was brought in to inspect the Merion site in June, and his name (along with M&W) was proudly broadcasted in every Philadelphia paper that November, when the project was announced. You must think Lloyd & Co. were idiots.

Regarding when his courses opened for play, some opened 1909, some in 1910, some in 1911, and so on, and some I'm not exactly sure when they opened. I do know his busiest period was 1908-1909, my count is fifteen courses designed/redesigned, but his June letter states upwards of twenty, so I'm must be missing a few. The point is he was in great demand, and in great demand by elite clubs.

Relax, I don't believe Barker had anything to do with Whitemarsh Valley, and I stated the timing was not right for Seaview. Atlantic City was a redesign of an existing course; Philmont was a nine-hole addition to an existing nine; Bedford Springs was a new 18-hole course. I'm not sure if he redesigned the existing nine at Philmont.

I wouldn't go so far as saying Travis gave a running itinerary of Barker's comings and goings, I wish he had it would have saved me a lot of research, but I would say he did promote the man. And Barker's tremendous design activities can be directly traced and attributed to his connection with Travis. By the time Merion was in the developmental stage Barker had left GCGC and was working at Rumson; I'm not sure what affect that had on their relationship. Plus Philadelphia (Mid Atlantic, to be specific) activities were reported by Hazard (Tilly), and in all those columns over the years I've only found one mention, and Barker was quite active in the region. I reckon he was not anxious to report on a business rival.

PS: When are you going to clean up the unrelated crap from your previous post?

[TEPaul]

"I really don't see the purpose of trying to disqualify an entire article because of a couple inconsequential errors. There were two other similar articles written in November, in the Phila Recorder and the Phila Inquirer, that also have small errors. Should we throw those articles out too? The main problem you have with the 11/24 is the announcement Barker had been secured to lay out the course. Actually in some ways the 11/24 article got more right than the other two. For example it reports MCC had secured 117 acres (as opposed to 130 acres in the other two) and the cost per acre of $726 per acre. I think it is obvious the authors of all these articles were getting information from an inside source. We have gone over the articles endlessly, I see no need to go over the same ground again."


Dan, Mike, Tom MacWood:

I don't want to rehash all of the old debate on here about when Merion East was routed and designed but if one carefully considers what those two November newspaper article say in the over-all and considers it all only in connection with the available facts leading up to those articles a slightly different scenario might develop.

Very few seem to consider what else was going on with that move of MCC's golf course from Haverford to Ardmore (I started another thread recently about the man who essentially controlled most all of it---Lloyd). This was a project that did not just involve moving the MCC course from Haverford to Ardmore, it involved a very significant real estate development. Without the latter the former probably not only wouldn't have happened, it probably couldn't have happened.

And it is interesting and I think very necessary to consider what-all those November articles says---eg they mention as much about the real estate development as they do the new golf course.

Of course it is logical to ask who it was who took those stories to the newspaper in November and why. I think it's probably more logical it was Connell of HDC rather than MCC or Lloyd. After-all the deal with the golf course was secured at that point but there was something else that needed some real traction from there----the sale of numerous real estate lots on the remaining 221 acres. That aspect is the real meat of the deal that Lloyd delivered to HDC. He not only negotiated a great deal for MCC at half the per acre price HDC payed for that 338 acres but Lloyd pretty much brought a ready made real estate buyer pool to HDC----the members of MCC.

We have all the lot buyers of that residential real estate development over the next ten years or so and the fact is considerably more than half of them were MCC members and/or business partners of Lloyd's. Scattergood, for instance, bought something like ten lots.

The other thing this scenario tells me is that virtually nothing at all happened on that land between July 1, 1910 and the middle of November 1910 concerning the planning of the golf course and therefore if Connell was the one who went to the newspapers when the agreement between MCC and HDC was secured in the middle of November he was just using information about the course from back in June when Barker was hired by him to do a course sketch which was noted by MCC's search committee to the MCC Board in their report on July 1, 1910.

This scenario also fits well with the fact there is virtually nothing at all mentioned anywhere about the actual planning of the design of the golf course between June, 1910 and January, 1911 when the Wilson Committee was formed.

Another interesting fact contained in the MCC board and report correspondences is that the Search Committee once its job was done of finding a site (November 15, 1910) morphed from being chaired by Lesley to being chaired by Lloyd in the end of November 1910. The next morphing of that special committee appears to have occured in January 1911. It looks to me with the foregoing from the board minutes and MMC report correspondence that it was Horatio Gates Lloyd who as the chairman of the morphed Site Committee selected Wilson to chair the next one as Lesley had selected Lloyd to take over as chairman of the last one.

[Tom MacWood]

"I really don't see the purpose of trying to disqualify an entire article because of a couple inconsequential errors. There were two other similar articles written in November, in the Phila Recorder and the Phila Inquirer, that also have small errors. Should we throw those articles out too? The main problem you have with the 11/24 is the announcement Barker had been secured to lay out the course. Actually in some ways the 11/24 article got more right than the other two. For example it reports MCC had secured 117 acres (as opposed to 130 acres in the other two) and the cost per acre of $726 per acre. I think it is obvious the authors of all these articles were getting information from an inside source. We have gone over the articles endlessly, I see no need to go over the same ground again."


Dan, Mike, Tom MacWood:

I don't want to rehash all of the old debate on here about when Merion East was routed and designed but if one carefully considers what those two November newspaper article say in the over-all and considers it all only in connection with the available facts leading up to those articles a slightly different scenario might develop.

Very few seem to consider what else was going on with that move of MCC's golf course from Haverford to Ardmore (I started another thread recently about the man who essentially controlled most all of it---Lloyd). This was a project that did not just involve moving the MCC course from Haverford to Ardmore, it involved a very significant real estate development. Without the latter the former probably not only wouldn't have happened, it probably couldn't have happened.

And it is interesting and I think very necessary to consider what-all those November articles says---eg they mention as much about the real estate development as they do the new golf course.

Of course it is logical to ask who it was who took those stories to the newspaper in November and why. I think it's probably more logical it was Connell of HDC rather than MCC or Lloyd. After-all the deal with the golf course was secured at that point but there was something else that needed some real traction from there----the sale of numerous real estate lots on the remaining 221 acres. That aspect is the real meat of the deal that Lloyd delivered to HDC. He not only negotiated a great deal for MCC at half the per acre price HDC payed for that 338 acres but Lloyd pretty much brought a ready made real estate buyer pool to HDC----the members of MCC.

We have all the lot buyers of that residential real estate development over the next ten years or so and the fact is considerably more than half of them were MCC members and/or business partners of Lloyd's. Scattergood, for instance, bought something like ten lots.

The other thing this scenario tells me is that virtually nothing at all happened on that land between July 1, 1910 and the middle of November 1910 concerning the planning of the golf course and therefore if Connell was the one who went to the newspapers when the agreement between MCC and HDC was secured in the middle of November he was just using information about the course from back in June when Barker was hired by him to do a course sketch which was noted by MCC's search committee to the MCC Board in their report on July 1, 1910.

This scenario also fits well with the fact there is virtually nothing at all mentioned anywhere about the actual planning of the design of the golf course between June, 1910 and January, 1911 when the Wilson Committee was formed.

Another interesting fact contained in the MCC board and report correspondences is that the Search Committee once its job was done of finding a site (November 15, 1910) morphed from being chaired by Lesley to being chaired by Lloyd in the end of November 1910. The next morphing of that special committee appears to have occured in January 1911. It looks to me with the foregoing from the board minutes and MMC report correspondence that it was Horatio Gates Lloyd who as the chairman of the morphed Site Committee selected Wilson to chair the next one as Lesley had selected Lloyd to take over as chairman of the last one.

There is no logical reason to think Connell was the source. He didn't play golf, he was not a member of Merion, and there is no evidence he had the press relationship necessary to produce that kind of blanket publicity. And as a non-member of Merion he would not have been privy to half that info.

The logical source is Robert Lesley. He was a committeeman at Merion, long time president of the GAP, and a former journalist. He understood the importance of publicity, as did he his GAP VP Harrison Townsend, who also had a background in journalism. Townsend's major major focus was running the GAP tournaments and publicizing them. And there is an unmistakable clue pointing toward Lesley: the dateline Lakewood, NJ. Robert Lesley had ties to Lakewood, played a lot of golf there, and the week of 11/24 there was major amateur event taking place at Lakewood that always attracted the top amateurs from the area. Travis, Travers, and Herreshoff played in that particular event, which was won, ironically, by an unknown playing out of Princeton. I seriously doubt Connell was anywhere near Lakewood November 1910.

[TEPaul]

"There is no logical reason to think Connell was the source. He didn't play golf, he was not a member of Merion, and there is no evidence he had the press relationship necessary to produce that kind of blanket publicity. And as a non-member of Merion he would not have been privy to half that info."


Tom MacWood:

Apparently you don't understand the point of the last post---there are a lot of reasons to believe Connell and HDC was the source of those November newspaper articles. Playing golf or being a member of Merion had nothing to do with it for him. He was the one who was doing the significant real estate development with Lloyd et al.

Concerning evidence Connell had a press relationship necessary to produce blanket publicity, apparently you don't seem to know who Joseph Connell was so I guess you don't have any evidence. He was a powerful guy in and around Philadelphia and the Main Line. Big business man and his brother was actually the Mayor of Philadelphia at one time.

There is every reason to believe he had all the info Lloyd did because the MCC Board and Committee minutes and correspondence point out he was the man singly negotiating the entire deal of the course and the real estate development with Lloyd from July to November. 

[Tom MacWood]

I understand your simple logic, but it is flawed for the reasons I gave...dateline Lakewood. As usual you are working on limited information. Lloyd was calling the shots; Connell was only an intermediary. There is no evidence Connell had any relationship with the press.

By the way his brother was Mayor a decade, or more, later. And I'm certain the wheeler dealers at Merion helped get him elected.

[DMoriarty]

Don't tell them stuff like that Tom.  We'll just have to listen to him wax on about how Connell's brother was eventually the Mayor as if he came up with it himself. 

[Tom MacWood]

I did a quick internet search, and evidently his brother became mayor in 1939 upon the death of the elected major. It seems he was never actually elected mayor...so I was wrong about him getting elected with an assist from his friends.

[TEPaul]

There is some very interesting stuff around here on Joseph Connell, particularly in some of the local township historical societies. He was quite the real estate hero around here back then, doing things like donating tracks of land for churches and schools. Back then there is probably no way at all that MCC crowd did not know him well. It was a small world in and around Philadelphia and the Main Line back then. I didn't come from here originally but my father did. He actually hated the place and escaped from it early on after the war.

There's an old saying around here that represents the ethos of the Main Line back then. I goes:

Your first allegiance
is to the Pennsylvania Railroad,
then to your God,
Then to your City,
Then to your State

To say a man like Joseph Connell did not have a relationship with the press back then is just so silly it does not deserve further response. Furthermore, how would you even know something like that? What you said about him is complete speculation-----just like everything else you've said over the years about Barker, about Wilson, about Merion, etc, etc, etc.