“Tom Paul,
1. Contrary to your claim, I repeatedly measured the triangle area before I posted my essay, and Francis' description fits the area to a tee (and a green.)”
David Moriarty:
You did? How could you measure the triangle AREA if?-----
1. You have since admitted on here that the “approximate road location” (the triangle’s left side) is inexact.
2. The known and pre-existing border of the right side of that triangle (in green) is 327 yards long; not 190 yards long as Richard Francis described in his 1950 story.
3. You said the following in your essay about that triangle.
“Surprisingly, as one can see in the land plan above, Merion acquired this small projection of land as part of the 117-acre parcel designated “Merion Golf Course” in the Plan.”
In your essay you included the Nov. 15, 1910 land plan above your explanation of Francis’ land swap and you referred to the entirety of that triangle in green on that land plan. The right side of that triangle is very measurable from College on the north to the southwest corner of the College Ave. land----a border that existed on the old Johnson farm and was exactly used for the golf course on that Nov. 15, 1910 PROPOSED land plan AS WELL AS the Lloyd purchase on Dec. 19, 1910----a linear dimension, I will remind you, still exists today (not as part of the golf course though)---eg 327 yard AND NOT 190 YARDS!
What would be really interesting however, is to compare the metes and bounds on the Dec. 19, 1910 transfer to Lloyd when he bought the 161 acres that DID include the entirety of the Johnson farm AND the transfer to MCCGA on July 21, 1911, seven months later, that DID NOT include the entirety of the Johnson farm but did include the metes and bounds of Club House Road!!
The point is if the Francis land swap idea had been agreed upon by Lloyd and Francis or Lloyd and HDC BEFORE that Dec. 19, 1910 transfer to Lloyd (and certainly a month or more before that and before THAT Nov. 15, 1910 land plan) why wouldn't it have been included in the metes and bounds of the property Lloyd bought for MCC on Dec. 19, 1911 to hold for seven months or even on the Nov. 15, 1910 land plan??
I believe a comparision of the metes and bounds of those two deeds, particularly in that area of the triangle will show us Francis' idea and the land swap to effectuate it had to have happened within that time frame----eg Dec, 19, 1910 and July 21, 1911, when Lloyd held the land for MCC, and matter of fact it would have had to happen between Dec. 19, 1910 AND that MCC April 19, 1911 MCC board meeting BECAUSE Thompson reflects THAT LAND SWAP in that meeting with his resolution for which he asks for and gets approval from the board (Aahh, the beauties of using a really good TIMELINE of ACTUAL FACTUAL EVENTS!!).
Frankly, when one analyzes what all this means in the the context of the ENTIRETY of Francis' story the entire story makes a whole lot more sense. What you did in your essay is just severely limit his story by concentrating on A PART of his land swap story----the part about his description of the triangle's dimensions (130x190).
The rest of his story you didn't even try to consider such as the part about getting the first thirteen holes in BEFORE running into the problem on the last five, as his story says. You also had to try to rationalize away what he said about the quarry men blowing the top off the quarry in two days. It's not very likely that anyone is going to blow the top of a quarry off a couple of months BEFORE they own the quarry!
I'm sure even you realized this and so, as you have with some many men around Merion at that time including Hugh Wilson's brother Alan, you have to just try to rationalize away the importance of the things they said and wrote by suggesting they all must have been mistaken or engaging in hyperbole.
I doubt that. It's just that the things they said and wrote don't fit at all into your scenario and your fallacious premises to construct this over-all scenario and so you have to discount, rationalize away somehow or just ignore the important things they all said, and now including a number of FACTS that have come forward SINCE you wrote your essay!!
We should probably go back and begin at the beginning and show how and how much you have done this kind of rationalizing away of important facts and statments in your essay, and certainly in the last year since it's come out. That way I feel more people would understand just why your essay is such fallacy as well as how you're still trying to defend it.
And this is not even to mention that at this point you seem to be virtually claiming that Lloyd and Francis were out there designing this golf course a number of month BEFORE Hugh I. Wilson and the rest of his committee (Griscom and Toulmin) were even appointed or got involved!! I guess your other fallacious premise in your essay that the Wilson Committee were nothing other than "CONSTRUCTORS" (with you Oxford English Dictionary definition rationalization of "lay out"
) to someone else's golf course plan is also coming back to haunt you and your essay, huh?
So what is your story now----that Lloyd and Francis were the routers and designers and then they joined Wilson, Griscom and Toulmin who were THE CONSTRUCTORS to their plan?
And that first Lloyd and Francis had some help from M/W and Barker who hadn't even been there since some day in June 1910 and then they joined the other three members of the committee in January and they all went to see M/W in March 1911 to learn how to just CONSTRUCT a course!
I guess you know need to claim that, right, since you've been suggesting on this thread that you now think a routing and design of the course was nearly finalized BEFORE Lloyd bought the property on Dec. 19, 1910!
You constructed a house of cards with your essay, and the additional FACTS that have come forward SINCE you put it on here, including Macdonald's own letter which you never saw, the metes and bounds of the deeds you never saw, the Cuylers letter you never saw, the Wilson report to the board on April, 19, 1911 you never saw, the Thompson resolution to the board at the April 19, 1911 board meeting reflecting the land exchange for adjoining land and the additional purchase of three more acres (the Francis land swap) you NEVER SAW, are all together bringing your entire "house of cards" essay down even if you refuse to consider why or admit it, both of which frankly don't even matter anymore.
I think one thing your essay has probably done benefically is to totally confirm by the days and weeks of continous documentary material searching and analysis by us something that in almost a century has never been questioned before, and with good reason!