Spring Vacation Part IV (ducks)

Some time back in the 1990's I discovered the community of Havre de Grace Maryland. Their claim to fame is that they are on the upper Chesapeake and have a large number of decoy carvers in and around the town. Every early May the decoy museum sponsors a decoy show and sale. Most of the local carvers bring their latest creations and many collectors show up with older stock some dating back to the early 1900's.

In the late 1800's there were thousands of ducks and geese on the East Coast flyway and the market hunters made a killing there. In about 1913 or so there was a major hurricane that came through and wiped out the native celery grasses and therefore the food source. Coupled with over hunting the duck and geese populations have been almost eliminated.

There is a really nice museum that has great displays of decoys, and early hunting equipment and celebrates many of the old time local carvers.

There are other places we have visited, in Maryland, where decoy carving and now collecting is a big deal, Salisbury, Easton and Chinoteague

We have not been to Harve de Grace for several years so as it turned out this trip to the East Coast worked out that we could at least get to the decoy show for a couple of hours on Friday night before we needed to head back to Indiana.

Duck hunting in the early 1900's up to the 1950's was all about big numbers, large spreads or rigs of decoys and making the hunter look small in the midst of a bunch of ducks. Most of the boats were home made of wood and designed for a very specific use.

This boat was designed to sit very low in the water and had cast iron decoys spread out on the wooden deck to help weigh it down. There were usually canvas pieces that floated on the water to make the transition between the water and the boat seem insignificant to the duck. Of course the cast iron duck and the extra canvas made the whole rig pretty precarious and have subsequently been outlawed.

These boats above were fitted with either multiple barreled shotguns or a huge shotgun so as to sneak up on an unsuspecting flock of ducks sitting on the water and blast away often killing as many as 100 duck with one shot. These are now illegal too.

In the photo above you can see the size of a conventional shotgun compared to the market hunters gun.

Along the way decoys carvers supplied thousands of decoys for all the hunters. Certain styles developed and evolved over time, one carver using the patterns of another or working in his shop and learning his methods before moving on to set up his own shop. Over time the style in one area began to take on a look that was much different than the style of carvers in another area of the state. The decoys that I carve are likewise a blend of what I have seen over the years and what I like or think looks the best to me.

These posters kind of summarize the work of one particular carver or a community of carvers from a certain area.

These two displays of duck heads are actually a pretty common thing for a carver to do. Each species of duck has a characteristic that is unique and the carver will build an inventory of those heads with various poses.

The Museum has a nice blend of old and somewhat contemporary decoys. The ones above show a considerable amount of detail in the painting schemes indicating that these were most likely carved for the collector rather for the hunter.

There were and are several overall categories or decoys. There were the 1890's hand made and now very expensive decoys. The 1920'-19050's hand made utilitarian decoys made by carpenters, boat builders, hunters, bakers etc. were usually done in a small shop or basement. Factory decoys were pumped out by the thousands in the post war years made on duplicating machines like the one below. Today there is an emphasis on fancy realistic carving where it is difficult to tell the difference between a wooden duck and there real thing. The Harve de Grave areas tends to focus on the hand carved in a small shop type of decoys.

The man pictured above and below is Madison Mitchell. He has been pretty well displayed in the museum showing his shop, below a wax figure in a recreated shop display and further below a memorial.

The red head decoys above and below are from the same carver. The one below is a 1950 vintage model made for hunters and the one above is one most likely made late in his career to appeal to collectors.

This wigeon above is an example of another successful carvers work.

You can see that the two decoys above and below though both canvasback decoys have a much different style.

Here are more Canvasbacks.

and even more. Back in the market hunting days canvasbacks were really common, now they are fairly rare.

Above is a mallard hen, and below a nice pair of Cinnamon teal

Above a wigeon and below a blue winged teal.

A pair of ruddy ducks and a wood duck drake.

Pintail drake and a pair of old squaw below.

The duck above is made of cork.

after spedinng some time in the museum we walked along the board walk along the Chesapeake. With all of the rain that had come through recently the water quality was much muddier that at any time we had visited in the past.

There was a nice skip jack sailboar that came into the docks so we stopped to take a look as they tied up. They had a really nice dingy hung off the aft.

Late in the afternoon we headed over to the middle school where the decoy show would be opening later that day. We spotted this new duck boat that a vendor was displaying

This thing was close to 30 feet long

and had comfortable looking seating. Much different than the home made wooden skiffs that were in the museum.

At the decoy show it was not as easy to take photos since much of this is considered folk art and the artists some time get a little picky about photographing their work or collections. These two guys said sure help your self.

Spring Vacation Part III (Gettysburg)

On Thursday May 5 Karen and I went to Gettysburg for the day. The Battle(s) of Gettysburg occurred over three days (July 1st to the 3rd) 1863. Over 50,000 Americans died in the battles on those three days. Many say that Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War. The Confederate army retreated to the south and never returned that far north, during the remaining years of the war. We have been to Gettysburg several times in the past, but not since there have been extensive restorations of the site. The original visitor's center has been replaced with an really nice facility that accommodates visitors and prominently displays artifacts and data related to the war. Since the 150 year anniversary is within a couple of years there is significant evidence of construction in and around Gettysburg, most likely to accommodate the anticipated crowds that will come for the next few years as the 150th years roll by.

The town of Gettysburg is in the midst of upgrading roads and walks. The battle field sites have had trees removed and other trees replanted to more closely demonstrate what the site might have looked like as these two great armies converged on this sleepy little town.

One of the impressive displays in a cylorama (377' long 42' high) oil painting that was complete in the late 1880's. It is easy to see at a glance the enormity of the battle as it is depicted, spread over the Gettysburg farm land. Portions of the map are displayed in various out door venues on the battle field showing what might have happen on the day of the battle at that location.



This is just a small section of the cyclorama

We went on the driving tour of the battle fields and stopped at most markers and tried to envision what it might have looked like when thousands of soldiers, cannons, supply wagons, horses were encamped in these locations. Early July, wool uniforms, having marched hundreds of miles and probably fought several battles. The sights, the sounds, the smells must have been over whelming. Today the site is dotted with hundreds of display cannons, rail and stone fences and commemorative monuments.

Some school group on a field trip are lined up like the soldiers of that time would have been staged to be prepared to march into combat. In the distance are little round top and big round top around which the Union army set up for the bulk of the battles. As it worked out the Confederate army pretty well won the first day of battle pushing the Union through the town of Gettysburg (early urban warfare) into what turned out to be the strategically best location for the Union to fight for the next two day. Ultimately the Union held their ground and the confederates retreated.

Although this is a peaceful looking shady road when it was originally a farm lane and was jammed full of confederate soldiers just inside the edge of the woods it must have been a mess.

This is Big Round top. It was nearly impossible to see the battle field from this place but it did give a high vantage point, an provided plenty of rock to hide behind.

The view below is from little round top where there was lots of intense fighting.

The site of this set of bolders (Devils Den) is reported to have been the site of some of the toughest and bloodiest fighting of the Civil War. The Confederates coming to this spot from the trees above and the fields to the right and the Union from below and from the left. really intense hand to hand combat occurred here for hours.

This Guy what an engineer credited with spotting a potential weakness in the Union line and notified command in time to block the route.

This is the site for Picket's Charge one of the costliest and final attacks of the Battle of Gettysburg. The scene below is about what the site might have looked like on that final day.

The panorama above is looking out from Little Round Top over the battle field from which the Confederates would have been coming. The shot below is looking up at Little Round Top from the Confederate side of the battle field. Of course on those couple of days in July 1863 those hills would have been covered with men in blue uniforms rows of cannons and death.