Tom,
Joe Bunker said, vis-a-vis Pine Valley that: "George A. Crump a few years ago while taking a horseback trip near Clementon, New Jersey, was so impressed with a sandy tract that he invited a number of Philadelphians to go on an exploring trip with him. They found a tract of virgin forest made up chiefly of scrub oak and pine and then and there decided that it contained a splendid golf course."
He was taking a "horseback trip". Do you suppose he rode 2 or 3 hours from Merchantville to Pine Valley for the horseback trip? Or did he take the train and bring his horse? Or, could he have been a guest of Virginia Ireland, whose daughter was an equestrian. Perhaps he was on a horse borrowed from the Irelands and was riding their 3200 acres. If so, maybe he arrived for the visit at the Sumner Station flag stop that served the Ireland estate (see article above). Maybe he noticed the rolling terrain across the tracks that was owned by the Lumberton Sand Company. Maybe he decided to trespass and have his picture taken there. Maybe he told Tillinghast about the property when they rode past on the train to AC. Maybe the two or three stories can all coexist.
J.E. Ford says that Crump retired to his home in Merchantville after selling the hotel. "His only interests then were golf and hunting." "His rambles afield with his gun and dogs often took Crump thru the fastness of pine and oak below Clementon." Ford later states that Perrin and Crump "journeyed one morning late in the summer of 1912 to Sumner station on the Atlantic City division of the Reading Railroad. They plunged into the wilderness west of the railroad tracks" (that would be Lumberton land). Hard to believe that he often took his gun and dogs and trespassed on Lumberton's land prior to taking Perrin there. Seems more likely he was a guest of the Irelands and rode horses and hunted on their 3200 acres. Perhaps he noticed the property on the other side of the tracks from the train station. Perhaps he asked permission from Lumberton before he and Perrin plunged into the wilderness for their picnic.
Many years later Shelley wrote of Crump: "He accepted the assignment of finding a suitable site. It was not long after that he wrote to his friends: "I think I have landed on something pretty fine. It is 14 miles below Camden, at a stop called Sumner, on the Reading R.R. to Atlantic City – a sandy soil, with rolling ground, among the Pines."
Shelley then goes on to say: "Some reporting by the press at the time mentioned Crump had seen the property from the train. But there is proof that in fact he knew the grounds by tramping through them with his gun and dogs while hunting for small game with which the property was well blessed. A photo of Crump resting amid the pines in 1909 is testimony of that fact. It could be that, in tramping through the grounds, he saw more of the trees and shrubs than the forest and perhaps only realized the rolling nature and the possibilities when he saw it at a greater distance from the train. In any case, he found a great location for the building of a golf course, no matter how."
His "tramping through them with his gun and dogs" sounds somewhat derivative of Ford's "rambles afield with his gun and dogs". His only proof of the hunting story being the Crump 1909 photo. But then, that could have been taken on Ireland's property, or it could have been taken while he trespassed on the Lumberton property, or maybe when he and Perrin had their picnic on the 6th tee, and the date of the photo is wrong.
None of this seems to me to be definitive. Rather, it seems to me that the train, horseback riding and hunting stories could all coexist.