"David makes his case on a very literal interpretation of words written or spoken and inscribed by others many years later."
Jeff:
You sure wouldn't get any argument from me there! He not only puts his OWN literal interpretation on the words Francis spoke many years later, he also is only using one segment of what Francis actually said in that article (and that's because that small segement was all he had available to him when he wrote his essay---eg he got it out of the Tolhurst book).
I don't think there's much question he did that because what Francis actually said when he mentioned the dimensions of that triangle can be interpreted and construed in a few ways, and he only used it to serve his own single interpretion----he did not consider any others and still refuses to. The reason is obvious---the guy cannot admit he's wrong about anything, including Merion and probably wouldn't if we found that contour survey map Wilson and committee was using or even writing documentation from Wilson himself explaining what he really did do there with the architecture of that course.
However, what Francis actually said and very likely meant takes on a more defined and clearer meaning when it is weighed against other documentary evidence from the archives of MCC such as Wilson's report and those April 19, 1910 MCC board meeting minutes. Moriarty just didn't have those when he wrote that essay and which we found later; the historians of Merion found it as apparently Heilman and Tolhurst had when they wrote their books (Merion's two history book writers).
"At the risk of being repetitive (again) I say that is less of a source than looking at the maps which show what happened and the club minutes that generally show when."
I completely agree with you. What Francis actually meant in his article becomes much clearer when weighed with other MCC records that Moriarty did not have when he researched and wrote his essay. He did not have:
1. The Wilson report which is very informative and central.
2. The April 19, 1910 MCC board meeting minutes which are far more central and indicative about the facts of Francis' idea and story.
3. He had none of the MCC business records about the setting up of the MCCGA corporation.
4. He had never even heard of T. DeWitt Cuyler, Merion's legal counsel and board member and the man who set up the MCCGA corporation, and he did not have his crucial Nov 23, 1910 and particularly his Dec. 21, 1910 letters to MCC president, Allen Evans.
5. He did not have the actual deed itself transfering 161 acres from essentially HDC to Lloyd in Dec. 1910 (HDC to Rothwell and Rothwell to Lloyd in the same day). Frankly either did Merion other than the date and seller and buyer in a title run extract. I went to the Recorder of Deeds in Media, Delaware Co. and got that one myself and even though I did that stuff all the time when I was in real estate it is never and easy or quick thing to find or do. I would wager Moriarty or MacWood have never been to a Recorder of Deeds to do GCA research or any other kind of research in their lives.
6. He did not have the transcription of Macdonald's actual June 1910 letter to Lloyd (the MCC Search Committee).
7. He actually had zero contemporaneous research material from Merion or MCC other than what can be found in the so-called "Sayer's Scrapbook." You should ask him what was in that and where he found it on-line!
And this guy tells me I don't do research?
My GOD, if he did half of the actual research I've traveled to do on the ground over the years rather than just sitting in front of his computer in California, like MacWood does in Ohio, he would've actually learned something about the architectural history of Merion, as he originally said he wanted to do.
Of coures he knows virtually no one from Merion and that's not very good for any competent credible researcher with a subject club.
"The arguments have always been about which bit of information can be twisted which way and by whom."
That's generally the way it goes when people on here don't have much contemporaneous documenation because they fail to go establish a working research relationship with the subject club, and when they don't do that, unfortunately their MO shows it in spades, as it does with the essayist of "The Missing Faces of Merion"----
. What they do in lieu of it is a whole lot of speculating, as Moriaty did in that ridiculous essay and continues to do on here because he seems incapable of admitting his mistakes and errors for some damn reason---I guess you can just chalk that one up to insecurity and/or defensiveness. So what are we always left with from him? More and more and worse and worse convoluted reasoning, rampant speculation and greater rationalizing and attempting to shift blame onto anyone but himself.
Talk about bizarre, incredulous and impossible to understand logic.To wit; get this hilarious example from Moriarty from today:
"I wrote that January seemed alikely date for the meeting, but what I reasoned was that EITHER the meeting occurred in January 1910, in which case Wilson's conversation(s) described in the February 1 AG letter could have occurred at NGLA, OR if the NGLA meetings occurred after February 1, 1910, then CBM and Wilson were working together before the NGLA meeting! It turned out to be the latter, thus that CBM and Wilson were working together before February 1, 1910.
You see how that works? It is called reasoning. You should try it. When the facts aren't clear I analyze the different possible outcomes, and leave room to work it out when the facts become clear. I don't just keep banging my drum claiming as fact what I hope happened like you jokers."
That last quote from Moriarty today pretty much says it all about the way HE WORKS on here, has for years and continues to.
