Merion's Early Timeline

[Mike_Cirba]

Jeff,

The point that's been proven is that the Merion Site Committee recommended a 120 acre purchase for their new golf course to the Board on July 1, 1910.   

They did NOT base that recommendation on a previous routing from Macdonald and Whigham.

We also know there is no record of any attached routing by Barker ever reaching the club.

Macdonald and Whigham did NOT come back to the property until TEN MONTHS later, and there is no record of any sort that they had any correspondence with Merion for the rest of 1910.

Barker was never heard from again in connection with Merion.

And you're right, someone did in fact at some point prior to November 15th, 1910 decide that the Dallas Estate should be purchased, and also decided that being a contiguous strip it would help them route golf holes on the south side of Ardmore Avenue.

But we have to ask, WHO was there to do that??   Only the Merion people, of course.

Once that land was aquired, the whole northeast section of the Johnson Farm was adapted to keep the total acreage at around 120, and to create a curving road as the boundary between golf course and real estate.

By doing these moves, they made it much easier to get more holes in south of Ardmore Avenue, but inadvertedly created a problem of width around the quarry that was later fixed by the Francis Land Swap.

David is left to telling us that Tom Paul said at some mysterious, unknown date that the Dallas Estate was under consideration prior to July 1910??  

There is not a single fact in this timeline he can dispute, because it's all based on the historical records, in CORRECT ORDER.

[TEPaul]

"The question is how and why did they decide to add the Dallas Estate to MCC, and when?  Since it is in the Nov 10 plan, and Freeman transferred it immediately to Lloyd just a week earlier on Nov 4, we know the decision was made at least by sometime in October 1910 (it had to take some time to execute paperwork, no?)"


Jeffrey:

That is incorrect. Freeman did not transfer anything to Lloyd on Nov, 4, 1910. Matter of fact, Freeman never transfered anything to Lloyd at any time!

[Mike_Cirba]

Bryan,

Understood, and thanks for doing all of that.

I'll be keenly interested to hear your results and hopeful that your findings will put this matter to rest, one way or another.  Let me know if I can help.

[TEPaul]

Jeff,  According to TEPaul, Merion and/or HDC were actively pursuing the Dallas Estate beginning in June of 1910.  So either TEPaul was lying to us about the source material or this entire theory is completely bogus.   

While TEPaul would have obviously had no trouble lying about the date it if suited him, I think the latter option makes more sense.



Jeffrey:

Obviously this man just makes stuff up as he goes along on here. I never said anything at all about Merion and/or HDC actively pursuing the Dallas estate beginning in June of 1910. I've asked him to support that statement he made about me saying that by quoting me and where I said that or retract it. He refuses. What do you make of a man like that? I know what I make of him.

[Jeff_Brauer]

"The question is how and why did they decide to add the Dallas Estate to MCC, and when?  Since it is in the Nov 10 plan, and Freeman transferred it immediately to Lloyd just a week earlier on Nov 4, we know the decision was made at least by sometime in October 1910 (it had to take some time to execute paperwork, no?)"


Jeffrey:

That is incorrect. Freeman did not transfer anything to Lloyd on Nov, 4, 1910. Matter of fact, Freeman never transfered anything to Lloyd at any time!

TePaul,

I took that little FACT from both the newspaper article AND your post 1455, pasted in verbatim below. The first pp is, I believe, a paste in of your own quoting David's Essay. The second pp is your response.

"But despite the reports about Mr. Freeman and his supposed plans for a house, ownership of the Dallas Estate immediately passed to Haverford Development Company. In fact, within 11 days of the November article reporting Mr. Freeman’s supposed purchase, the development company had not only secured the Dallas Estate, they had also sold an option on the parcel to Merion Cricket Club. Given this quick turnaround, Mr. Freeman (if he existed) may have been acting clandestinely on behalf of the development company, which was perhaps hoping to avoid having to pay an extortionate sum for land crucial to their deal with Merion."


We can check this particular transfer of the Dallas estate at the Recorder of Deeds at Media, Delaware County, if need be, but I am almost certain that HDC did not excecute an option on that property with MCC in Nov. 1910 as the "Missing Faces of Merion" essay states above. I believe HDC probably had an option with Freeman to purchase the Dallas estate while almost simultaneously reaching an AGREEMENT (not a purchase) with MCC to purchase it (along with 96 acres from the 140.137 Johnson farm (21+96=117)) in the coming months. As we know on Dec. 19, 1910 Horatio Gates Lloyd would take title to the Dallas estate (21 acres) along with the entire Johnson Farm (140.137) which together made of the entirely of his 161 acre Dec. 19, 1910 deed. Within approximately seven months (Dec, 1910-July 1911) Lloyd would transfer 120.1 acres of that 161 acre Dec. 19, 1910 deed to MCCGA.

I even took the word "transfer" from your post.  It was also one of the posts I referenced to Mike C that prefaces comments with the words that you strongly believe, but could check the records.

In any case, arguing those little details doesn't detract from my question to Mike and you. 

Mike C,

Don't go all TePaul on me and rewrite entire time lines! I think I understand the basics, and was purposely trying to narrow down the decision (not the actual deed transfer) on when to add the Dallas Estate to the MCC golf course.  It is, after all, just as important to the final form of MCC as the famous Francis Land Swap!

Note, I did NOT say ANYTHING about June 10, CBM, Whigham, or Barker, and yet you felt the need (uneccessarily IMHO) to drag that back up and refute it, while ignoring the meat of the question.

If we believe newspaper articles, we still need to interpret what, when and why this came to be as it did.

The key dates that we KNOW are the August 11 agreement by Mr. Freeman to buy the Dallas Estate, and the November 4 finalization of that purchase, together with the agreement for it being transferred right to HDC (sorry I said Lloyd in a previous post to confuse TePaul, even though I think practically for the purposes of the MCC history, they were about one and the same) by Novemeber 10, 1910 and included on their concept plan that was presented to the members.

TePaul's theory is that the whole idea came very quickly just before Novemeber 4, and that Freeman was an outside individual.

DM's theory was that Freeman was acting on behalf of MCC on August 11, meaning that the idea hatched sometime in July, not long after MCC presented its report based on coversations with CBM and the letter covering some of those conversations.

Neither is an unlikely scenario in my experience.  I have seen no facts presented either way to prove the case.  Someone should probably look up and see who this Freeman guy is.  If in any way connected to the club or HDC, we coud probably presume that the idea was hatched in July 1910 and took about a month to put together to where he could take an option.  It COULD have been a result of discussions with CBM.

If he truly was interested in building a home and NOT connected to HDC or MCC, then maybe HDC sought to buy the Dallas Estate right after learning that someone else was taking advantage of their plans to build fine houses around its shining new MCC centerpiece to the subdivision.

In either case, the decision was made at least sometime between August and November that this land was better suited to golf.  It was possible the decision was under consideration in July.

If the second scenario is correct, following TePaul's line of thinking, then we would need to examine why the MCC committee decided that it would be better to have the Dallas Estate and not the other land in HDC's holdings.  Did it just "look right?" or was there some kind of routing work going on to suggest to them that it was a better fit?  I am asking and truly open to facts and even other possible interpretations! 

TePaul suggests simultaneously that these were all really smart guys and at the same time, would make an important decision without really thinking about it (IMHO, doing a routing of some kind) I mean, THAT does sound a little counterintuitive, doesn't it?

Like I said, I think the key would be to know if Freeman was an interloper or an insider.  If insider, the idea for the Dallas Estate surely hatched in July 1910 as DM speculated.  If an interloper, the idea for adding the Dallas Estate probably happened soon after that August 11, 1910 newspaper article, and MCC/HDC probably started working on Mr. Freeman to buy that property, which delayed the actual sale until November, with the known results that Freeman gave/traded/sold the land to MCC for other considerations.

And, once again, since it went RIGHT to the MCC side of the land ledger, how was that decision made?

PS - If TePaul tells me this logic is flawed because its not in the MCC record, I will puke all over my computer......

[TEPaul]

Quote from: MCirba on Yesterday at 08:34:13 AM

..............................

p.s...paging Bryan Izatt, paging Bryan Izatt

Bryan...I did calcs of the Johnson Farm westernmost neck of land from the 1900 Railroad Map (whch seems dimensionally more accurate than the 1908 one).   When I go on Google Earth, it seems about 120 yards wide, but I wanted to get your independent take on the measurement of that land.

Thanks."





Mike:

It's a little hard for me to do (because some metes and bounds on the hand-written copy of my Dec, 19, 1911 deed can be a bit hard to read) but when I go to that point and begin where the last "point to point" is identical  on both deeds and subtract out the linear dimension to the center line of Ardmore Ave at the corner of the Eaton place from the entire run up to the northwest corner in that old western section of the Johnson farm I get 1161 feet (1561-400=1161). From there it is 666 feet to the northeast corner of that western section. From there it is 996 feet to the southwest corner and from there it is 1107 feet to where the southeast corner of that western section starts north to create the old western boundary at the top of the "L". It seems the centerpoint of Golf House Road and Ardmore Ave actually is slightly to the WEST of the old western boundary at the top of the "L' of the old Johnson farm, as I said I thought it was.  

[TEPaul]

Jeffrey:

I'm not too sure what to make of that last post of yours. All I can tell you is that it is an absolute FACT that Freeman did not transfer anything or have any contractual arrangement with MCC at all, whether an agreement or an option or anything of that nature. Whatever Freeman had in Nov, 1910 it was with HDC and not MCC.

If you are referring to something you don't understand from that post #1445 it is probably the part I quoted from Moriarty's essay. How could anyone understand THAT as it is not based on a single fact of any kind.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

Yes I meant to type that Freeman would have been working for HDC, not MCC.  Sorry for that.  But at various times, you have told me I was wrong in that Freeman didn't pass it to Lloyd (event though you say he took title in Dec 1910) or MCC even though it was transferred by agreement to them in November 10, 1910 (because it shows on the plan of that date prepared by MCC to show members) and eventually deeded to MCC later in 1911.  It appears to me that you are in the "Just say no" mode to almost any post by anyone.

The question of how the Dallas Estate came to be part of MCC still stands and no one has truly addressed how that came to be part of the thought process, given how strongly you all believe that the initial plan was to use all of the HDC property described as the Johnson farm.  The plan as to what land to use obviously changed at some point.  All I am asking is why.

As to your post 1445, I have said in the past that I do understand DM's logic tree, even if it happens to grow from some assumptions and incomplete documentation.  What I didn't understand was you telling me that Lloyd/HDC or whoever NEVER transferred the Dallas Estate to MCC.  Here is your quote from that post:

That is incorrect. Freeman did not transfer anything to Lloyd on Nov, 4, 1910. Matter of fact, Freeman never transfered anything to Lloyd at any time!

And yet the newspaper and deeds actually show quite clearly that the Dallas Estate was briefly owned by Freeman, transferred to HDC, and then agreed to be put in the MCC land in November 10, 1910 (because it shows on the plan of that date prepared by MCC to show members) and eventually deeded to MCC later in 1911.

While I incorrectly typed some initials, and condensed the entire transaction process, and presumed that HDC and Lloyd were effectively the same entity, tell me why I shouldn't have been confused by your post.  And, if you were simply pointing out some details of my typiing mistakes, then please answer the meat of the question, as you understand it.  Thanks in advance.

[TEPaul]

Jeffrey:

To be honest I've grown tired of all these Merion threads if they have a thing to do with Moriarty. It's just too much work on our part to try to educate everyone else as they come along piecemeal while all the time having this man on here dismissing facts we produce, ignoring them if it seems to him they may threaten the logic of that piece of garbage essay of his. And if that doesn't do it for him he just patently lies in trying to assign false statements to someone.

I just sent an email to Ran that if this garbage is still going on when I get back to Philadelpia next week I don't want to be on this website anymore.

Wayne Morrison became extremely disappointed that the rest of the participants on here would allow to happen on here a charade like Moriarty's and the complete mockery he has made and continues to try to make with Merion's history. While I admit, it is probably true to say that 99.9% just don't give a damn (and this includes Merion) how extreme this pathetic jerk gets on here in whatever the hell his odd mission really is, I do care about the accurate history of Merion on the INTERNET!

I have nothing to hide about Merion and I have nothing to hide at all anyway, never have, and I don't mind at all admitting that regardless of what happens to Moriarty on here I will use every bit of influence I have in this town and at those two clubs to see to it that David Moriarty is banned forever from ever getting any information from either club and hopefully banned from the grounds of both clubs. Nobody can cross the boundary of commonsense and decency with a club like that and with its members and friends and get away with it. Maybe some of the contributors and participants on an INTERNET website think he can and should but in the real world that won't happen.

Anyway, Jeffrey, there is plenty of factual information out of Merion on these threads now for you guys to figure this thing out about the Francis land swap some day, and about Wilson and committee and Merion East. My suggestion to you and to anyone else interested is to simply wash your minds of anything and everything David Moriarty has ever said about Merion and you should get to the truth of it eventually. It is definitely not an easy one and it has taken us years to see it clearly but if any of you have the interest in it a few of us do, you will get there if you really work at it. Good luck!

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

Another great example of your single minded focus. For Bryan, Mike C, and others who for some god unkown reason like historical digging this has nothing to do with DM at this moment.

Mike C posted a thread on a timeline for Merion.  IMHO, there is still a gap - while we know the dates of the land transfers of the Dallas Estate to MCC we still need a similar interpretation of how and why that came to be.  It is relevant to the Francis Land Swap because you and Mike C have pretty well stated your case that once the Dallas Estate came into the MCC fold as golf land, it necessitated the reduction of land on the north of Ardmore, which then eventually led to the Francis Land Swap.

The question of whether Freeman was an operative of HDC or an interloper in their grand plans would be instrumental to solving that part of the puzzle.  It is quite possible, as I outlined, that his presence as an insider would put consideration of the Dallas Estate earlier than you would like it to be in Mike's timeline. 

Trying to strong arm anyone into not discussing it to discover MCC's true history (not saying they are lying, just saying no one until golf club atlas really tried to dig into it) doesn't solve anything.

The Dallas Estate question was raised by me. No need to drag this back to DM, unless you are just saying (which I guess you kind of are) that after 1500 posts on Merion, you have your mind made up and just don't care anymore.

That much I can understand......

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick,

Honestly, I'm close to just dismissing your posts on this thread because they are unnecessarily argumentative and continually refer to areas of discussion long since resolved.

You keep referring to some magical and invisible correspondences of Macdonald that took place at some time between July 1910 and December 1910, but there are NONE.  Zero

Mike, you've got to let someone read these posts to you because you obviously don't understand them.  You deliberately misinterpret them, then distort them, then put your own spin on them.  I NEVER refered to magical and invisible correspondence, that's your biased interpretation.

I stated that you couldn't view Macdonald's letter as the basis for excluding any and all other forms of communication, which is what you did.

Are you stating that there was NEVER any phone conversations, other letters or memos or visits and that when Macdonald came on site he was deaf, dumb and blind, choosing NOT to say a word while he was on property, letting his letter serve as his sole communication with the folks at Merion ?

Your contention that Macdonald's sole communication with Merion was a brief letter is beyond absurd.

You and David are asking for us to prove that UFO's dont exist when the complete burden of proof is on YOU.

You CAN'T prove that Wilson routed and designed the holes at Merion, you've failed your own test.

If CB Macdonald designed Merion, then show us all the what, when, where, and how.

I never said that Macdonald designed Merion.  Why would you deliberately LIE and say I did ?  ?  ?
That speaks to your intentions, integrity and intellectual honesty.

But, I don't exclude the possibility.

Show us the what, when, where and how Wilson routed and designed Merion.
You can't.
You have no contemporaneous proof.

Right now, it's just a dream that you and David seem to share.   A nice, pleasant fantasy, admittedly, but one better suited to relaxing on a beach somewhere dreaming of a young Tanya Roberts, a good Cabernet, and wishing and hoping that your hero was somehow responsible for another great golf course, but a fantasy nonetheless...

Mike, sadly, you just don't get it.


p.s....our last posts crossed, so I'd only say that Merion did NOT seek out "One Day Wonder HH Barker" to design their course.    The July 1, 1910 Report makes very clear that the Real Estate developer Joseph Connell did that on his own.   

His plan never saw the light of day and there is not even a mention that his routing was included in what got sent to the Merion Board.

How do you know that ?
How do you know that portions of the Barker routing weren't incorporated into the final Merion routing ?

How do you continually make these proclamations without an iota of factual evidence ?

You're so invested in Wilson, due to your Cobb's Creek project that you've lost all objectivity on this subject and related threads.

Clearly, Merion wanted to go in a different direction than the "Slam Bam, thank you Merion" architecture practiced by the early British professionals like Barker.

How do you know that ?

How did Barker's routing differ from the final routing ?

Stop making absurd proclamations absent any proof.

We also KNOW based on the timeline that Macdonald visited and wrote his letter of June 29th, 1910, that was most assuredly NOTHING close to a routing of the golf course EXISTED, yet on July 1, 1910, the Merion Site Committee STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to the BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF MERION that they move forward swiftly to aquire the 120 acres available at that time for the golf course, which at that time included the northeastern and southern sections of the Johnson Farm, and the 3 acres of railroad land.

How do you KNOW that nothing close to a routing existed.
Didn't the Barker routing exist ?
Do you think, given the perameters of the property that M&W would be incapable of providing a routing ?
Why else would Macdonald state in his letter that a great golf course was there for the taking ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Could you address the questions I raised.
I highlighted them in red.

Thanks


Let's accept your statement that Wilson and his committee were commissioned in early 1911.


I previously asked you if it was counter intuitive to believe that Merion, which HAD SECURED the 117 acres sometime between July 1, 1910 and November 15, 1910, would wait until 1911, up to half a year, to begin the routing process ?

THINK about that.

Think about your work at Androsian (sp?) Farms.

Think about NGLA ?

Think about Merion ?

Why on earth, with an early routing by Barker and probably a general or maybe a specific routing by M&W  around July, 1910,  would they wait for a half a year (6 months) before embarking upon the routing of the golf course, especially when the acquisition of the land had been such a tortured exercise ?

If you and I had secured the land for a golf course we were anxious to build, would we wait six months before attempting our first routing ?  ?  ?
[/b]

[Rich Goodale]

Pat

Could you please stop using quotes and colo(u)rs in your replies?  I know that I am not alone in finding them largely unreadable and thus very ignorable.  If you want people to read what you say, do not forget that the medium is very much of the message.

Thanking you in advance, and not intending to reply to your reply if you use quotes and/or colo(u)r..........

Rich

[Mike_Cirba]

Jeff,

I'll see what I can find on James A. Freeman and I'm hopeful Bryan is going to be able to shed some light as well.

We'll keep digging, and hopefully we'll be heard through all the shouting.

[Rich Goodale]

Mike

I was trolling through the USGA archives last night, and in the Jan 1911 USGA Journal they reported that a syndicate incorporating WH Atterbury, EX Filton, AF Huston and WG Lloyd had boutght 300 acres for MCC for $85,000.  Other than Lloyd who were those guys?

Rich

[Mike_Cirba]

Rich,

The were really, really, REALLY rich guys.

Atterbury was the head of a railroad,etc.   I have all of their full names somewhere home.

Some of them were NOT members of Merion.

Also...my first try at finding James A. Freeman was not successful...he did NOT play in the opening day tournament at Merion although all of the other usual suspects did.

[Mike_Cirba]

There was a James A. Freeman's Sons who were a seemingly large Auction clearing house in Philadelphia during that time period. 

They seemed to deal in large transactions, involving things like automobile plants and railroad stock.

Not much to go on yet.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,


Thanks. From that, Freeman could have been building a really big house, and from the opening, obviously was not a huge part of MCC or HDC, or he likely would have played in the event.  (I guess he could have been sick or busy, but the most likely scenario, based on what we know now is that he really was an interloper who wanted to build in the area.)

IMHO, that would push the timeline (for the moment!) back until August when HDC sprung into action to make sure they controlled all the land.  I would not be surprised to see a Freeman house on those maps somewhere near Merion very soon thereafter if he merely picked another available land plot to build on.  It still says that there was some work done to detemine that more land south of Ardmore made sense for golf, but it doesn't say exactly what either HDC or the committee did to decide that.  I am just curious as to how that decision was made.

I really have no right to ask anyone to dig deeper, nor do I want to put you out. On some level, I figure you want to keep digging out of interest and leave no stone unturned. If not, I understand, and I think most participants here will understand if the Merion History Search of 2004-2009 ends without a complete resolve of the issues.  That may never be possible anyway.

[Mike_Cirba]

Jeff,

I'm in it this far...I do want to see how the story ends! ...I've already sent the hounds out to track more about Mr. Freeman. 

I'm also hopeful that we'll be able to make some educated determinations based on what Bryan can do with metes and bounds.


***EDIT***

No James Freeman owned any adjacent property on either the 1913 or 1920 Railroad maps.   

One nice bit is that by 1920, the house on Golf House Road just below the 15th green was owned by Hugh Wilson, almost right in the area where we think the Francis Land Swap happened.

It also doesn't look as though there was virtually any change in ownership of properties adjacent to the Dallas Estate on the southern and northwestern borders though the period of 1908 through 1920..

In 1908 the adjacent properties were Zell, Ross, Zeis, Lockwood and Lockwood
In 1913 the adjacent properties were Zell, Shubert, Zeis, Lockwood, and Lockwood
In 1920 the adjacent properties were Zell, Shubert, Zeis, Lockwood, and Lockwood

[DMoriarty]

Once again, this has all been covered many times before, starting in my essay.

Freeman is most likely a red herring.  He was an auctioneer who was likely brought in to hide the identities of the real purchasers, so as to get a better deal on the property.    I doubt he was ever the real owner of the Dallas Estate, and expect the property records to reflect this.

The Dallas Estate purchase was in the works from June 1910, according to TEPaul.   So then this entire theory is debunked is it not?

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

In my post, I gave your theory and TePaul's theory equal billing and possibility.  No need to restate an oft repeated position on your part.  Since no one has produced those property records on here, IMHO, this little detail in Merion's time line is unresolved.

I have also said that IF Freeman was a front, then it suggests strongly that your theory is correct.  But if he was independent, then the rerouting happened after August, but likely before Nov. 10 (although it could have been delayed until later)

I am certainly hoping for factual based discussion, regardless of whose theory is proven (or at least more suggested) to be correct.  Mike is simply trying to ferret out what really happened. 

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

What do you nean this was all covered before? 

Your own  essay states that you're uncertain whether Freeman even existed!!

Now, suddenly because I told you he did exist and was an auctioneer of some repute in Philly you speculate anew that he must have been shilling for someone else and couldn't possibly be wanting an estate home for himself and weKve already discussed and determined all of this anyway even though you never knew til today that Freeman was a real person and although he denies it, Tom Paul at some point over the last few years supposedly stated that Merion was looking at the Dallas Estate prior to July 1910 and even if he did or didn't there is absolutely no evidence of that so that all means my theory based on the timelines of the land purchases and Merion documents is wrong!

Do I have all that right? 

[DMoriarty]

David,

What do you nean this was all covered before? 

Your own  essay states that you're uncertain whether Freeman even existed!!

Now, suddenly because I told you he did exist and was an auctioneer of some repute in Philly you speculate anew that he must have been shilling for someone else and couldn't possibly be wanting an estate home for himself and weKve already discussed and determined all of this anyway even though you never knew til today that Freeman was a real person and although he denies it, Tom Paul at some point over the last few years supposedly stated that Merion was looking at the Dallas Estate prior to July 1910 and even if he did or didn't there is absolutely no evidence of that so that all means my theory based on the timelines of the land purchases and Merion documents is wrong!

Do I have all that right? 

Nope.  You got it all wrong.   I have long known Freeman ran an auction house and have discussed it on here before, even suggesting that his only role was some sort of middleman or broker.   And we have discussed these issues before.

Here is part of one of my posts for over a year ago, responding to some comments from Wayne and addressing these issues.

In 1908, the Johnson Farm was controlled by the Philadelphia and Ardmore Land Company.  The Haverford Development Company was formed sometime before June 1909 (we have a deed dated June 1909 that shows the acquisition of land near the present golf course) and acquired the Johnson Farm on Dec 16, 1910 after being transferred via James P. Rothwell, Jr. and 3 days later to HG Lloyd.  On August 11, 1910 the sale of the 21 acre Dallas estate to the HDC was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Regarding the 1909 Deed, are you relying on my interpretation from my emails, or did you get an expert to translate for you?   

Regarding the Dallas Estate, often times the paper reported a sale as soon as the deal was struck, but then reported it again when the deal finally closed.  With regard to the Dallas Estate the completion of the sale was not reported until Nov. 4, 1910

]As I mentioned offline, I think that J.P. Rothwell was an agent who acted as sort of a middle man on some of these transactions.   I now believe that James Freeman played a similar role regarding the Dallas estate, as I have since determined that there was a James Freeman who ran an auction house, an occupation which indicates he was comfortable with playing the role of the middle man.

Did you have the a surveyor look at 1909 deed, or did you rely on my interpretation from my emails? 

. . .

As for the rest, here is where TEPaul said that the Dallas Estate purchase was being contemplated from the middle of June 1910.

. . .

Anyway, at least one piece of MCC correspondence also indicates throughout the time from the middle of June 1910 until well into the fall they all felt it not prudent to be too obvious about what they were doing which I suppose primarily meant having their eye on the Dallas estate.

. . .

 

So now can we move beyond this debunked theory of yours?  You may want to take the "Detailed and SOLVED" part out of the heading.

[Mike_Cirba]

Sorry David...coupling your earlier speculation about Freeman with Toms unsubstantiated speculation about an early Dallas sighting still adds up to zero evidence.

Where are your facts?

[JESII]

Mike,

The Dallas deal is only unsubstantiated because Tom said it came from MCC correspondence and has yet to post support of that...