The Creation of NGLA in Chronological, Contemporaneous News Articles

[Mike Cirba]

Andy,

Patrick will be greatly heartened to see the picture of an automobile.

Thanks.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

But not so much by what appears to be a dirt or gravel road that is under it.

[Andy Hughes]

Mike, are you saying that is not Patrick in the back seat?  I thought I had made a real find.

[Mike Cirba]

Mike, are you saying that is not Patrick in the back seat?  I thought I had made a real find.

My Lord....I don't believe it!  

I think that's CBM and Whigham in the back seat, routing the course while getting chauffered around the site by two comely lasses!  

Those bastards!!   And here they told us they did the whole thing on horseback!  




Oh wait...is that Whigham and Emmet?? 

Where's my glasses??? 

[JESII]

"Those bastards!!   And here they told us they did the whole thing on horseback!"


The one in front, closest to us, looks like she could pull the Budweiser Wagon with the clydesdale team...

[DMoriarty]

David, Mike, Wayno, TEPaul, Joe, Steve, et. al.

In 1904-1906 who owned the land shaded in black in my post above ?

Patrick,

I am sure that this will not surprise you, but Mike's drawing is wrong.  The SH Golf Club land extended further north than Mike's drawing indicates. Mike apparently fudged the drawing to make it seem that no part of the SHGC land was directly west of the clubhouse.  Either that or he didn't bother to figure it out for sure before he presented it as fact. Probably it is both.  

So, to partly answer your question, some of the blacked out land was controlled by Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

Even if Mike's drawing was accurate (and it is not) his logic would still fail him.  The developer controlled the land to the west of the land Mike designated as SHGC.   We don't know the exact shape of the 450 acres of land CBM was considering, and it very easily could have extended down to a point directly west.

__________________________________

Mike Cirba,

1.  Please quit misrepresenting the December articles by claiming that they described the land as " 'undetermined.' "   As I have pointed out repeatedly, the articles do not even use the term.   Yet you keep quoting them as if they do, which is another indication of your willingness to distort the articles even when you know otherwise.   How is that not dishonest?

2.  As for questions, you have yet to answer the ones you called "beyond stupid and insulting."  Why don't you go back and answer them, assuming your previous position on these October articles was the correct one?  That might save us some time once your latest song and dance routine ends.  

3.  You indicated to Patrick you could prove that your representations about the SH Golf Course land were correct.   So please prove that the SH Golf Course land extended no further north than you have represented.  

4.  When I refer to the Sebonack Neck parcel, I mean the land from which CBM eventually chose the real site. The one he refers to as being 450 acres.   This land obviously extended a bit south of what was actually Sebonack Neck.  Yet you ridiculously and repeatedly portray my position as somehow confining CBM only to land actually on Sebonack Neck.  Bush league.

5.  Your Hugh Wilson debacle was but one example in a sea of instances where you have done similarly.  It just happened to be the one that popped to mind, and because it went on for years I thought others might recall it as well.  The only reason I brought it up was to remind others the lengths to which you will go to muddle something that really isn't that complicated, and to point out that this is exactly what you are doing here.   You have proven time and again that you are unwilling and unable to honestly consider facts which contradict your preconceptions, and will circle back repeatedly through all your old and tired theories rather than face the obvious.   We need to call you out on this garbage so the conversation can move forward.  

6. Your claims about my essay are laughable and not worth addressing, especially given your track record.

[DMoriarty]

Do the Oct. Articles Describe the 120 Acre Parcel Near the Canal?

Jeff Brauer has suggested that the October articles could be describing the 120 acres near the Canal, discussed in Scotland's Gift.   I don't think so for the following reasons and maybe more:

1. The acreage is way off.  The acreage is over double what CBM reportedly tried to purchase.

2. The timing is way off.  CBM wrote that he decided that he wanted to buy this land within a few weeks of the developer's purchase which was in the fall of 1905.  This detail strongly suggests that the offer was made closer to that time period  --CBM presents it as if it was a missed opportunity, that he just missed getting the land on the cheap.   Plus, CBM wasn't a fool.  I doubt he would have sat on his offer for about a year until the development was reportedly well under way.      

3.  The outcome is way off.   CBM wrote that his 120 acre Canal offer was rejected.  Yet the October articles indicate that CBM had secured the property.  While this pronouncement may have been premature, it strongly suggests that CBM and SHPBRC were on their way to making a deal at that point, especially when we consider that they formalized their deal two months later.  Liwewise, the articles indicate that they were well along in the process; that CBM and HJW had already been over the sites several times, had created maps, and even sent them abroad.   It sounds like whether the final deal had been worked out, CBM had his location.  This does not jibe with the description in Scotland's Gift of the land having been rejected.  

Also, later articles confirmed that the site purchased was the same one that had been previously discussed.  

4. The location is way off.  The 120 acre Canal property was located "near the Canal."  The October articles described property adjoining SH Golf course to the east.  The Canal is about three miles west of SH Golf Course.  No matter how hard he tries, Mike cannot reasonably reconcile these two descriptions with a 120 acre golf course, or even a 250 acre course.  This is especially so when we consider the rest of the description.  The land reportedly stretched along Peconic Bay with the westerly point of the property near the inlet, which is then still over a mile and a quarter to the Canal.

5.  Speaking of location, the described land is way too close to SH Golf Course.  Take a close look at Scotland's Gift.  In the paragraph discussing his attempt to purchase the 120 acre Canal parcel, CBM explained that he did not want to get too close to SHGC.  He also explained that entire parcel was huge ("some 2000 acres") and that the land he sought was near the Canal.  The Canal was the western edge of the SHPBRC land.  It was as far away from SH Golf Club as one could get on the Shinnecock Hills property.  

When considering this, look to the text itself and not to Mike's representation of the text in post 741.  Rather than posting images of the pages as usual, there Mike actually typed out THREE paragraphs from Scotland's Gift.  But in Scotland's Gift, there are only two.  CBM had devoted one paragraph to describing the pluses and minuses of the sites he did not use, so one paragraph explains CBM's attempt to buy 120 acres near the Canal. Inexplicably, Mike separated out the bit about the offer from the explanation, as if the offer was somehow unrelated context explaining the offer.

But we cannot disassociate CBM's wish to be a distance from SH Golf Club from his offer for the Canal land. If we consider the offer back in the context of his desire not to crowd Shinnecock, it helps helps explain the appeal of the site near the Canal and that the October articles had nothing to do it.

Was Mike again intentionally "fudging" the record?   This may be too sophisticated a deception to attribute to Mike, but with all his recent practice I wouldn't necessarily put it past him.  Besides, whether or not intentional, the point remains the same.  The sentence must be read in context, and in context we can see that early in the process CBM did not want to crowd Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and tried to purchase land well away from Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.  This is irreconcilable with the October articles which describe land adjacent to the golf course.

[Andy Hughes]

2. The timing is way off.  CBM wrote that he decided that he wanted to buy this land within a few weeks of the developer's purchase which was in the fall of 1905.

David, how do you know that?

[Mike Cirba]

David,

CBM tells us he decided he wanted to buy land within Shinnecock Hills within a few weeks of the developer's purchase of 2700 acres in late 1905.

He says absoutely nothing about the timing of the Canal offer, although we can reasonably assume it was between late 1905 and December 1906 when he made his offer that was accepted for 205 undetermined acres out of the 450 available on the tract of land known as Sebonac Neck.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff Brauer,

Just skim read the last two pages.

You stated:
Not to bring up a sore point with Patrick, but that seems to confirm that there was no highway there either

So the New York State Senate documents are a forgery ?  ?  ?

Jeff, how you can make the above statement.

The 1904 and 1905 Automobile club Maps show the North Highway existed.
The 1906 New York State Senate Minutes show that the North Highway existed.
The 1907 Olmstead Bros map clearly shows the North Highway existed.
The 1916 Map Bryan posted shows it existed.

In addition, in Nov 1906, the Shinnecock Inn was being rebuilt on the North Highway.

But, you and Mike are going to insist that the North Highway didn't exist, despite the overwhelming source documentation.

Have you been hanging out with Charlie Sheen ?

How many times do I have to tell you that many, if not most or all of those newspaper articles are seriously flawed.

Even TEPaul, today, warned you not to rely on them.

 ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jim,

Hang on a second...

I'm not assuming anything about CBM other than he was very good at using the press, and perhaps he was floating a trial balloon.

As far as the exact boundaries location, I'm not sure how that is less specific than what was reported in December, which was that CBM had secured some 205 "undetermined" acres between Cold Spring Bay, Bullshead Bay, and Peconic Bay.    THAT is pretty non-specific, as well.

Not when he tells you that his first tee was 200 yards from the Shinnecock Inn and that the golf course property adjoined Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.
And, not when he cites his locations for his 4th, 5th 12th and 13th holes, along with the 1st, 18, 9th and 10th.
That clearly defines a long, narrow strip of land, bordered at the south, east and North.

Only the fine tuning of the Western border had to be established.[/b]

Here, at least you have some fixed points....an eastern end adjoining Shinny, a southern end skirting the tracks, a western end out near the inlet, all stretching along Peconic Bay to the north.

If CBM had already determined that he wanted to use the coming Shinnecock Inn as a clubhouse, tell me why he would NOT have strongly considered that territory as a preference to going up into the uncharted territories to his northeast where he ended up?

Because he knew that the ultimate location for his clubhouse was going to be at its present location.
The Shinnecock Inn was a temporary site.[/b]

I've posted the topo here...it looks pretty, pretty good to me.

Tell us, what looks good about it ?

Are you familiar with that land ?[/b]

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff,

I haven't read the replies for the last few days carefully, because it's difficult to read, but, you can be rest assured, when tomorrow is over and I have the time and focus, I'll scour them for every mistake you've made (;

[DMoriarty]

Andy,  

How do I know what, specifically?

Here is the paragraph from Scotland Gift where CBM discussed the canal site.

Shinnecock Hills also was very attractive. but I preferred not getting too close to the Shinnecock Hills Golf Course. The Shinnecock Hills property, some 2,000 acres, had been owned by a London syndicate and was sold at about $50 an acre to a Brooklyn company a few weeks before I determined that we should build a course there if we could secure the land. I offered the Shinnecock Hills and Peconic Bay Realty Company $200 per acre for some 120 acres near the canal connecting Shinnecock Bay with the Great Peconic Bay, but the owners refused it.

It seems fairly straight forward. Right before CBM determined he should try the secure "the land," the entire parcel changed hands, and even at a premium the new owner wouldn't sell.  

1. I don't buy Mike's latest notion that CBM had only decided to eventually try buy some land he hadn't yet bothered to look for. CBM didn't write  "if we could secure some land" or "if we could secure land."   He wrote "if we could secure THE land."

2. CBM presented it as if he had just missed getting the land. This would not have been the case had CBM still been about a year away from being ready to make an offer.

3. t was no secret that the new owner was ramping up to develop the land, it was in the papers, and was what SHPBRC was created to do (and what Alvord did.)  It is hard to imagine that CBM would have waited to make his offer until the developer ramped up the project and invest in infrastructure. There is nothing in the record suggesting that this was the case.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Patrick,

Great news on you correcting me....I didn't have anything fun planned for tomorrow and now I do!

[Bryan Izatt]

Bryan,

Thanks for your updates on the roads and for providing some unbiased input here.

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


I would disagree slightly with your drawing of the purple lines on two counts.

NGLA never owned, and CBM never purchased, land beyond today's 9th green extending down to the Shinnecock Inn.   Further, land that far south was NEVER known as part of Sebonac Neck if we believe David's original argument that the author was simply describing the large land mass of Sebonac Neck.

THe southern boundary of CBM's purchase was north of ALL of Shinnecock Hills GC, not just the portion on the peninsula to the west.  The SE corner of NGLA would abut the NW corner of where Shinnecock was in 1916.  The article says it "adjoins" SH.  Scotland's Gift on page 187 states that the land they actually purchased for the course "adjoins" SH.  See the highlighted pic below.  I think that the October "adjoins" is used in the same sense as CBM's book.  The article doesn't say that the entire eastern boundary adjoins SH as you've drawn.  Nor did the actual purchase only adjoin the western boundary of SH.  I think your visionary moment of yesterday is flawed.  

It wasn't until a month later in mid-November 1906 that it was reported that an Inn would be built.   When that was determined is unclear, but assuming that CBM already knew it was in the works it would have been only natural for him to have closely examined the land I've drawn, especially since it was surveyed prior and clearly more evolved than the unexplored land up to the northeast.  Why would it have been more natural.  Why would he be interested in more "evolved" land?  What do you mean by surveyed? Do you mean topo'ed? 

Also, the article mentions that the land CBM purchased skirted the LIRR to the south...your southern boundary is still probably a good .15 mile away, but we're likely within range of reasonability there.  I think any reasonable person would consider .15 miles to be skirting. 

Also, the article says that property "stretches along Peconic Bay to the north", which I don't see as necessarily adjacent.   The rectangle map as I drew does stretch along Peconic Bay to the north, in fact, particularly as Cold Spring Bay is serviced directly from the larger bay.  This is a stretch of a different sort on your part, I think.  Dictionaries suggest that stretched along means covered an expansive area.  That's an expansive area along Peconic Bay.  You'd think that if they meant that it stretched along Cold Spring Bay, they would have said so.

Further, it locates the western point as "near" the inlet between Good Ground and Shinnecock Station, which means it could have extended directly on the shores of Peconic Bay for a bit at it's furthermost point, exactly as today's course does.  I don't read the article to mean that it ended precisely at the inlet, as you have drawn, and believe that CBM would have certainly wanted to stretch it out along as much of Peconic Bay as his routing permitted, given a fixed start/end point (Shinnecock Inn), much like he did at Sebonac Neck.  But, your area doesn't stretch out along any of Peconic Bay.

Finally, the larger article makes clear that it's decribing the specific land CBM is supposedly going to purchase, and that land is described as 250 acres.   Please read the first paragraph of this one, for instance.

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

It is very, very unlikely that the article was talking about a land mass as big as drawn.  It's an article in a newspaper, not a deed.  I think they are trying to position it's location where there was little development and few landmarks.  How else would you have described the eastern boundary.  Apart from SH there are no other landmarks on the east side of it.  The LIRR and Peconic Bay would have been obvious landmarks.  Presumably in October when they hadn't really purchased it yet and were still looking at 450 acres, the western boundary would also be amorphous.  There were no real landmarks over that side either.  I think I'll stick with my rendering.  It's less stretched than yours.   

[Bryan Izatt]

Bryan,

Who created this map ?    It is from an Atlas of Suffolk County published by E. Belcher Hyde Map Co.

In looking at it, it's clear that CBM's account in Scotland's gift is correct.
That the land he wanted for NGLA adjoined Shinnecock Hills.

He stated that his 1st tee was 200 yards from the Shinnecock Inn, placing Shinnecock's Golf Course directly to his East.
We also know that the 9th green is even closer to the Shinnecock Inn.

The property line in 1916 remains as it is today with Shinnecock Hills adjoining NGLA along the old 1st hole and further

Hence, it appears that CBM's account on page 187 is accurate, despite Mike Cirba's decree that it wasn't.

[Bryan Izatt]

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

David Moriarty,

Would you tell all of the morons debating the use of the North Highway, and Mike Cirba who stated that it didn't exist in 1914, let alone 1906, that the automobile in America only went into large scale production in 1902.  

So, how many cars do you suppose there were in America in 1906?  

Not many

How many in NYC and LI? How many paved roads to accommodate them?

Not many  

In 1906, many of the streets in NYC were still cobblestone and the major mode of transportation was train and horse and carriage.  
But, then maybe cars and paved roads came earlier to the Shinnecock Hills than they did to NYC.  

Or maybe, as you and Mike would have us believe, there was no civilization East of the Shinnecock Canal.
No roads, no residences, no businesses, just a recent railroad, Shinnecock Hills Golf Course, the Shinnecock Inn and a railroad station for the golf course.

How many people lived east of the Shinnecock Canal in the 1900's.  The 1900 census has only 75,000 people in all of Suffolk County.  In1905, in the netherworld of eastern LI, how many do you suppose there were? 

How many businesses?  Wasn't that area primarily a summer retreat area back then? 

Who said there were no roads?

On the 2700 acre Shinnecock Hills property there were about 25 buildings in 1903.  Pretty dense population.    Probably at least 25 horses and carriages to go with them. 

The Automobile Club map of 1905 indicates that the North Highway was a tertiary road at best.  


Seems like it was the ONLY East-West Road on the North Shore of the South Fork.

How does the North Highway appear in your 1916 map ?

Why are you dwelling on the North Shore of the South Fork?  The North and South highways were 4 miles long and separated by maybe a half mile. Surely the 25 folks living there could make the half mile side trip off the South highway if they needed to go to the north shore.  Although why they would is a mystery since there was nothing there in that 4 mile stretch at the time.

 It was there in 1916 and appears to be the same quality as the south highway.  In 1905 it was a tertiary road.  In 1903 it was a tertiary road (see the next post).



Hardly seems likely it was THE MAJOR EAST-WEST ARTERY.

Really ?  How's it look in the 1916 map you posted ?  THE MAJOR EAST-WEST ARTERY ?
That road was the only East-West road on the North Shore of the South Fork.[/b]

  See the comments above.  A major 4 mile ARTERY in 1906 - I think not.

There were no automobiles even produced in America prior to 1893.

And that, believe it or not, commerce, travel and development existed on Long Island long before 1902.

How did golfers get to Shinnecock, if not by the North Highway ?  By train and then carriage up Tuckahoe Rd?

Tell us, how did the carriages get out to Shinnecock ?
Were they airlifted ?
Or, did they get there vis a vis, the North Highway.

Perhaps the servants took the 8 hour drive out in horse and carriage.  When do you suppose that members began to use cars to get to Shinnecock?  1906? 1910?  Later?  It was still at least a two hour drive in an automobile from NYC in those days.

Why was the Shinnecock Inn sited on the North Highway ?  
Maybe it was a pretty site?  Secluded?  Anticipating future development of the road?


Bryan, I could expect that reply from Mike, but you ?
You know why the Shinnecock Inn was sited there.  
Because that location was on the main thoroughfare on the North Shore of the South Fork.

According to Mike it was a cart path.  Why would you site a hotel on a cart path ?  See above.

Ditto

Build it there on the dirt road and develop NGLA and develop the 2700 acres and the roads will come

Mike, Phil and others have chosen to ignore the realities of 1906, only four years after cars began being produced in large numbers in the U.S.  

Mike Cirba remains disengenuous, first claiming that the North Highway, which appeared in his posting of the 1907 Olmstead plan, didn't exist.  Then, he acknowledged its existance, then he backtracked and stated that it didn't exist in 1914, now he's stated that it existed, but, was a cart path.

The fact is that the North Highway was THE MAJOR EAST-WEST ARTERY on the North Shore of the South Fork.  When was it "THE

MAJOR EAST-WEST ARTERY"?  1906?  1916?  Later?  How do you know?  What is the source for your following statement about evolutionary development and diminishment.  Over what time frame was that evolution?  Are you saying it was completely evolved by 1906?

It was a major artery in 1906, 1916 and today.  1906 - Nonsense!   1916 - maybe.
One of the proofs is in the 1916 map you posted.
Another in the 1907 Olmstead map.  That map is useless advertising bumpf.
Another is the siting of the Shinnecock Inn.
Another is the siting of Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.
Another is the siting of the Railroad Station on the North Highway.[All of these are reasons it might have become an ARTERY in 1916, but it wasn't in 1906.

You don't site those items in an unaccessable, remote area.[/color]   Build it and they will come.  Ooops, that was a baseball field in in a corn field in Iowa

The proof to that statement would be in the evolutionary development of the North Highway as THE MAIN EAST-WEST ARTERY east of the Shinnecock Canal, as contrasted with the diminishment of the South Highway as a major artery.

The fact that the North Highway paralleled the RR probably aided in its becoming THE Major East-West Artery.

Mike has no shame and will continue to misrepresent and lie, yes lie, in an attempt to promote his agenda.

Mike's posted the maps, schematics and google earth aerials of the area, not me and not David.
The North Highway ran right smack down the middle of the golf course he insisted was CBM's.

Others, (not you David) are content to let him misrepresent and lie, without so much as the slightest admonition.   
I guess it's the age we live in.  That's a little harsh. Part of a discussion board is to present hypotheses and then defend them.  Mike does that, but then so do you and David and many others.  Not many are so dogged and emotional as you three are when you can't persuade the other side.

[Bryan Izatt]

One more map for the mix; from the 1903 U.S.G.S. - State of New York survey.  I guess that CBM was wrong that it was never surveyed.  Maybe 20 foot contours weren't good enough for his purposes.  Note that there are maybe 25 buildings on the whole 2700 acres.     Anybody want to try to place the 2700 acres on the map? And those annoying dashed-line ARTERIES went up into Sebonac neck even in the early days of 1903.  Must have been hard to get the ponies up the ARTERY.

[Mike Cirba]

Bryan,

Very cool map, thanks for sharing.

As regards you land mass interpretation, I 'd respectfully disagree.   Shinnecock Hills did in fact, "adjoin" to NGLA's purchase, just as CBM said, but it adjoins to the south, not the east.    If the writer was looking for major landmarks to the east he'd have to be pretty blind not to see that the property they bought skirted Bulls Head Bay for a mile.

He certainly wasn't imprecise about mentioning that the land of the purchase ran as far east as Shinnecock GC, skirted the railroad tracks to the south (the land CBM bought was over 1/3 mile from those tracks), and had its westernmost poiint "near the inlet between" Good Ground and Shinnecock Station.

I don't see that as a general description at all, and yes, if the writer considered Cold Spring and it's inlet to be part of a larger Peconic Bay to the north than I think that description locates the attempted purchase where I placed it.

I also think it would be very, very odd for CBM not to have considered that land very strongly for the reasons I mentioned previously.   He could use the Shinnecock Inn to serve as a clubhouse, have long stretches along the water, etc...

We know accounts said he was looking at "Various Sections" around Peconic Bay and Shinnecock Hills and I'd frankly be shocked to learn that this wasn't one of them.

Back to your map...

Probably Jeff can best tell us if 20 foot elevation changes were good enough for field work, but it certainly does cast some doubt on CBM's claim that it had never been surveyed prior.    

Thanks again for sharing.


David,

Please show us precisely what land of the Shinnecock HIlls Golf Course was north of the NGLA southern border in 1906.

I have found no evidence of that whatsoever, so I'm asking you to please show us.


Also, I'm not sure why you insist on hand-typing just snippets from source documents out of context when I've made it all available here.   Don't you trust that people here on GCA can read for themselves without your selective interpretations of the evidence?

For instance, you just re-typed the part about CBM deciding shortly after Alvord's purchase that he wanted to buy in the Shinnecock Hills, followed by the sentence that made his offer for land near the canal, all seemingly in the same timeframe.

However, you then neglect to post the next sentence, and paragraph, which ALSO makes the finding of the Sebonac Neck property and the associated agreement by the developer to sell them 205 acres at 20,000 ALSO seem to fall in quick sequential order, as well, when we KNOW that the whole thing took about a year.

So please just make your point about the evidence, or enter new evidence, but please quit pulling evidence out of context and reshaping it for your purposes.    Thanks.






The fact is, all we know from this is that CBM determined to build his course somewhere in the Shinnecock Hills a few weeks after Alvord's purchase, which was in late 1905.

We also know CBM went abroad for almost six months in early 1906.

We don't know when he made his offer for the canal prooerty, and we don't know when he subsequently found the land at Sebonac Neck.

We do know that after the company agreed to sell him 205 acres at $200 an acre that "we" went back and studied the contours earnestly to see how the land fit best to the holes they had in mind.

We don't know how long that took, or when it happened.

We know that CBM signed papers formalizing that agreement on December 14th, 1906, at which time he was quoted as saying that he and his committee would spend the next several months determining which holes to reproduce as well as their yardages.

We know that CBM bought more land than he thought he needed for just golf.

That's what we know so far.

[Mike Cirba]

David,

Would you prefer going forward that I write "have not yet been determined", or "undetermined" when referring to the boundaries of the land that CBM secured in December 1906?


Also, I have not claimed that the land of the October articles was the canal purchase or not.    It's very confusing on multiple fronts, I'm still trying to determine what is accurate and relevant and collaborated or not in those Oct. articles you posted, but I also think we're finding more and more minor details that CBM got wrong over 20 years later when he wrote his summary of events.

For instance, we know from Bryan's recent post that the land had indeed been surveyed prior, we know CBM got the date wrong for when his course opened, and for when his first Invitational Tournament was held, and we know he omitted the pieces about the golf course size and building lots from his 1904 agreement, so whether the course was located near the canal or not, or whether this was one of the "various sections" CBM was reported to have been considering in those 2700 acres we probably will never know.

I'm just not convinced in the least that the October articles refer to the Sebonac Neck property....I think it's very unlikely matter of fact.

Please show us what portions of the 1906 Shinnecock Hills GC went further north than the NGLA southern boundary.   Thanks.

[Andy Hughes]

The timing is way off.  CBM wrote that he decided that he wanted to buy this land within a few weeks of the developer's purchase which was in the fall of 1905.

David, sorry, it was crystal clear to me what I meant!  I was asking how you/we know SHPBRC purchased the land in the Fall of 1905. Not doubting it just curious where that came from.

[Mike Cirba]

Andy,

That large purchase. Bof 2700 acres by Alvord was reported pretty widely in the latter part of 05.  I can. Get specifics. If you need.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

Please refresh my memory on when CBM started his subscription to NGLA, if you can.

It occurs to me that had he made an formal offer on the canal site in 1905, he would have had to be ready to pay for it if they said yes!  Did he have his sixty members by then?

[Andy Hughes]

Mike, it's not critical, I am just curious to read it if you have a link or something similar easily accessible.

[Mike Cirba]

Jeff,

David said that those Subscription letters date from 1904, but I'm not sure his source.

I do find it odd that in 1912, CBM wrote that this idea germinated about six years ago, but I do have 1905 articles where he is obviously enamored with the idea himself and I know he was transfixed on it for some years prior.

Here's what he wrote in early 1912 in his letter to the Founding members of the club...bottom line is I don't think CBM was very good with dates.    ;