Decoys of the Susquehanna Flats: a wooden duck with a long history

By Rafe Calder

In 1924 two archaeologists working in a cave in Nevada pulled eleven duck decoys out of a pit. Eight were painted and feathered. Three were unfinished. All were made of bundled tule, a long grass-like plant.

That is the account in Wikipedia’s article on Lovelock Cave, which names the diggers as Mark Raymond Harrington and Llewellyn Loud, working for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Two of the decoys were later dated by accelerator mass spectrometry, in 1984: one gave 130 BC, give or take 330 years, and the other 300 BC, give or take 230. A trade magazine, Antique Trader, says Native Americans bound tule stems into decoys “at least 2,000 years ago.” The figures are not far apart, though the ranges are wide. Our reading: nobody can say which year, and the sources do not try.

Where the word comes from

Wikipedia says “decoy” comes from the Dutch de kooi, “the cage,” and dates to the early 17th century, when a kind of duck trap came to England from the Netherlands. That trap was a long, cone-shaped wickerwork tunnel built over a small pond. A trained dog herded the birds into it. The same article says wildfowl decoys, mainly ducks, geese, shorebirds and crows, were originally carved from wood, are now typically plastic, and count as folk art.

Why Havre de Grace

Antique Trader puts Havre de Grace, Maryland, at the mouth of the Susquehanna River and the head of Chesapeake Bay. Waterfowl come down the Atlantic Flyway each fall and settle on the shallow Susquehanna Flats to feed on grasses and celery seed. The prized bird was the canvasback, which the magazine calls the “King of Ducks.”

The Havre de Grace Decoy Museum, a nonprofit and so a producer describing itself, says that by the 19th century sportsmen from around the world hunted canvasbacks on the Flats, and local hunters sold birds to restaurants in Baltimore and Philadelphia. The magazine adds that pollution, overshooting and habitat loss reduced the flocks and stricter laws followed.

A town with a style

Antique Trader names John “Daddy” Holly (1818 to 1892) as the first known carver of the Havre de Grace style and his son James T. Holly (1849 to 1935) after him. It describes the style as an upswept tail, a round bottom and a lead weight fitted with a ring, a staple and a tie string to keep the decoy upright in rough water.

Across the Flats, it says, the Cecil County style is credited to John B. Graham: a paddle tail, a flatter bottom and a head set higher on the body. The museum names a third group, the Rock Hall School, begun by John Bennett Glenn (1872 to 1951) around 1916 and said to have mentored four generations of carvers.

R. Madison Mitchell (1901 to 1993) took up decoys after helping his cousin. He was an undertaker by trade. The magazine estimates he made over 100,000 decoys. The museum says his style dominated the decoy market for most of the second half of the 20th century, and that his workshop is kept as it looked in his lifetime.

Working birds

The magazine describes the sinkbox, a coffin-like box that hid a hunter just below water level. Large ones measured ten feet by six. Cast-iron decoys weighing up to fifty pounds sank the frame, and hundreds of floating canvasback decoys ringed it. The United States banned sinkboxes in 1936, and many states had done so earlier. The article says they were “too deadly on the ducks.”

After World War I, it says, factory decoys of cork, canvas and papier-mâché had little success, and wooden decoys won. By the 1950s there were fewer hunters, and carvers made more decoys for display than for use.

How a collectors’ magazine says to judge one

Antique Trader’s advice is plain. Look at form: the lines and whether the posture suits the species. Look at detail, such as the finishing strokes on a wing patch. Ask about originality, since original paint matters, and a decoy that was never rigged or weighted may have been made for display. Above all, it says, ask the story: where, when, how it was used and by whom. We repeat this as the magazine’s advice and add nothing to it.

Dates in order

130 BC and 300 BC (with wide margins): the two dated Lovelock decoys, according to Wikipedia.
1818 to 1892: John “Daddy” Holly lives, according to Antique Trader.
1924: the Lovelock decoys excavated, according to Wikipedia.
1936: sinkboxes banned in the United States, according to Antique Trader.
1985: the city declares Havre de Grace the “Decoy Capital of the World,” according to Antique Trader.
2 November 1986: the museum opens, according to Antique Trader.

What kind of sources these are

Two Wikipedia articles. A collectors’ trade magazine feature. The museum’s own website, which describes itself. A National Park Service page for the museum, which lists exhibits but gives no founding date. None is a scholarly study.

What we left out

Prices, auction records, hours and admission. Any named carver who is living. The museum’s list of its carvers’ gallery. The hunting methods beyond the sinkbox ban.

Quick answers

How old are the Lovelock Cave duck decoys? Wikipedia reports radiocarbon dates of 130 BC and 300 BC for two of them, each with a wide margin of error.

Why is Havre de Grace called the decoy capital? Antique Trader says the mayor and city council declared it so in 1985. The town sits at the head of Chesapeake Bay, where canvasbacks feed.

What is the Havre de Grace style? According to Antique Trader, an upswept tail, a round bottom and a lead weight with a ring and staple.

Roam first. Shop later.

/sell-with-sephari/