The JOE KING BRANT DECOY BELOW from ELKANAH COBB\'S RIG is From AROUND the Same Period As This BLACK DUCK Up For RARE!! Cobb Rig Decoy!! 100% ORIGINAL PAINT & CONDITION;
c1875 \"JOE KING\" (1835-1913); HOLLOW \"BLACK DUCK\", Eastern White Cedar Wood Duck Decoy; MANAHAWKIN, NEW JERSEY
- AWESOME 100% ORIGINAL PAINT (Old & Dry with Great Patina) and Original Lead Ballast Weight!
- Also the ORIGINAL LEATHER LINE-TIE is in PERFECT ORIG. CONDITION with EVEN A NICE PATINA of ITS OWN!!!
GREAT AND TYPICAL JOE KING, DEEP & WIDE \"ICE GROOVE\" ON BACK!!
VERY OLD & RARE, ANTIQUE \"BB PUPIL-ED\" GLASS EYES!!!
AWESOME HEAD with SUPERB, EXTREMELY THICK, COMBED PAINT!!!
AWESOME 100% ORIGINAL PAINT WITH OUTSTANDING 138-YEAR OLD PATINA!!!
- Joe King was the Mentor of Lloyd Parker among Countless others and Widely Considered the Originator of the New Jersey Style of Decoy!!
An Awesome Example of a Historic, Jersey Shore, Hollow Black Duck Decoy; But Made For a Famous Virginia Gunner in the Name of ELKANAH COBB!!! Excellent for a 138 Year Old Decoy!!
PROVENANCE: FROM THE WORLD FAMOUS COLLECTION OF KRISTINA BARBARA JOHNSON of PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY (HER COLLECTION STAMP ON BOTTOM)
Kristina Barbara Johnson passed away on April 18, 2013, and was not only well-liked and respected by anyone she met, but was also one of the more respected historians and collectors and was listed as one of Americas Top 100 Collectors in Art and Antiques from 1986-1996. A trustee of the American Folk Art Museum for decades, she was part of a broad and important network of folk art collectors. Her friends and acquaintances were countless and included people from all walks of life, as well as personalities from Warhol to the Kennedys. The single-owner section of Favorites from the Estate of Kristina Barbara Johnson comprises seventy-eight lots in the January sale and is made up of both traditional folk art with works by artists such as Grandma Moses, Micah Williams and William Matthew Prior and twentieth-century Outsider Artists, including Bill Traylor, William Edmonson, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Sam Doyle, William Hawkins and Thorton Dial. The works will be offered within the Important American Furniture, Folk Art and Decorative Arts sale was held on Friday, January 24 at 10AM at Christies New York.
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ABOUT JOE KING, THE CARVER OF THIS RARE & AWESOME DECOY!!!
This Vintage, 138 year old, Very Rare and Very Nicely Formed and Executed Black Duck decoy was hand carved and painted by the Widely-Accredited Originator of the New Jersey style of decoy, Joe King (b. 1835- d. 1913) of Manahawkin, New Jersey. Manahawkin is located within Stafford Township, in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. Manahawkin translates to \'land of good corn\' although this has been disputed by recent scholars claiming that it translates to \'fertile land sloping into the water\'. Manahawkin is the gateway to the resort communities on Long Beach Island, with Route 72 providing the sole road access, ending in Ship Bottom as it crosses Manahawkin Bay via the Manahawkin Bay Bridge. Manahawkin is also located 4 miles south of Barnegat and the world famous duck hunting grounds of Barnegat Bay and 8 miles north of Tuckerton, the home of the great Harry V. Shourds.
ABOUT JOE KING,THE NEW JERSEY COAST & OTHER EARLY AREA CARVERS!!
In the middle of the Atlantic Flyway, it is no mystery why the New Jersey coastline was one of the most prolific waterfowling areas in the country from the mid-1800\'s to the early 1900\'s. This area was rich with large tidal bays, salt-marsh ponds, clean streams and swift-flowing rivers. It is thus no mystery why New Jersey\'s earliest forms of tourism involved guiding hunting parties along with the flourishing trade of market hunting. Among the areas frequented by the Victorian market gunners (1847-1901) was Sandy Hook south to Manahawkin Bay, Barnegat Bay and Great Egg Harbor Bay among many others. New Jersey decoys are often divided by area into Barnegat, Tuckerton, Manahawkin, Mullica River, Absecon, Head of the River and Cape May. A few of the more prominent Master Carvers from each area are Henry Grant (b1860-d1924) and John Dorset for Barnegat, Harry V. Shourds (b1861-d1920)of Tuckerton, John Updike for the Mullica River, Levi Truex (died 1934) and Captain Dan Showell for Absecon, Mark English for the Head of the River, Otis Townsend for Cape May and Joseph King, Lloyd Parker (b1859-d1921)and Liberty Price (carved c1870-1910)for Manahawkin. The wood used by these master carvers was Eastern White Cedar as during this time period huge stands lined the rivers from the coastline inland. New Jersey\'s first industry was cutting these huge forests to provide lumber for the burgeoning shipbuilding trade. Coincidentally, this wood provided the perfect material for the early decoy carvers in the region that were making the tools with which the hunters in the area used to harvest the abundance of migrating waterfowl. Although the predominant New Jersey decoy would evolve into a \"dugout\" hollow decoy with glass eyes, the earlier decoys such as this Joe King Black Duck up for sale, were a mix of semi-hollowed and solid decoys with almost all having painted on eyes. And of these carvers, Joe King (1835-1913) of Manahawkin is considered by many to be the true father of the New Jersey style of decoys as it is known today and he was one of the first carvers to make decoys for a living, but never approaching the enormous output of New Jersey\'s most prolific sellers of decoys, Harry Vinuckson Shourds (1861-1920). Joe King carved at least a pair of decoys for just about every species of duck and goose that frequented the New Jersey region of the Atlantic Flyway. As the Patriarch of the New Jersey style of decoy, Joe King was the inspiration and often the mentor to countless numbers of New Jersey carvers and his patterns were adopted by the well-known master carpenter, boat-builder and decoy carver Lloyd Parker, also of Manahawkin. Like his predecessor Joe King, Parker\'s decoys were much sought after by professional hunting guides for their parties to gun over. Like Joe King, Harry V. Shourds was one of a very select number carvers that was known to have carved almost every species of migratory waterfowl that staged in the Jersey region.
MORE ABOUT JOE KING, HARRY V. SHOURDS & THE EARLY CARVING DAYS!!
Joe King was most famous for several species of decoys including Brant, Black Ducks, Scaup, Canada Geese, Redheads and Goldeneyes and to a much lesser degree Buffleheads, Mergansers and shorebirds such as Snipe. Not a great deal of information has been published about the specifics of Joe King\'s family life and upbringing but his decoys did have many characteristics that were his and were widely and almost exclusively adopted by other carvers during the later years of his career and through the late 1800\'s and early 1900\'s by the vast number of Jersey carvers that followed him. A great many of the carvers from the 1860\'s to later 1800\'s were also boat-builders or guides-men by trade and there is some indication that King also was employed in these areas in some capacity during his lifetime. Some of his early birds, like a few of his mergansers, were solid and full-bodied, but has later decoys were almost exclusively hollow, yet also very full-bodied. The Body on this Black Duck up for sale is extraordinary with its perfectly contoured body that meets at the rear end with an awesomely carved tail that is perfectly rounded and sharp-ended. Like the decoys that would follow his form, the backs swooped down to the tail but not as sharply as other later carvers like Harry V. Shourds among others. Joe King\'s decoys were also carved with and without ice grooves immediately behind the head on the beginning of the back, and this decoy has a sensational one. King\'s decoys that did have ice grooves like this black duck, had beautifully carved in grooves that were deeper and more widely incised than those made by most others including Lloyd Parker. Lloyd Parker, also of Manahawkin, used King\'s decoys to fashion his decoys after and other than some marked differences like his shallower ice groove, their decoys look very similar for obvious reasons. Others that also copied King\'s decoy patterns, had ice grooves and followed similar lines, but again the ice grooves were shallower and less distinct. The ice groove was carved in for exactly the purpose it\'s name suggests it was meant for, to make handling easier when ice build-up made the decoys harder to grasp in late season weather conditions. Another characteristic of King\'s decoys were the pinched necks which gave the appearance of the heads having fuller cheeks and like this black duck up for sale, King\'s decoys heads were carved with the heads and necks \"reared-back\" and thus the forward thrusting base of the ovoid yet rounded neck widens greatly at the base where it was attached to the body. Joe King\'s earlier decoys employed rectangular lead \"pad\" ballast weights nailed onto the bottom, but his later decoy\'s weights were incised into the bottom much like the decoys made by Harry V. Shourds. And this decoy is exactly that as the Lead was Heated and Poured in Perfectly into the Recessed Square carefully gouged out of the bottom of this Great Black Duck up for sale!! King\'s decoys used leather for the line ties, and the one on this Beautiful Black Duck up for sale still has the original and very nice leather line tie. King attached the heads of his solid-bodied decoys by using white, lead-based caulk/adhesive and finishing nails that were countersunk and the top holes filled with the lead caulk. However, like this Black Duck up for sale, King\'s heads and neck bases on the body were carved so perfectly and precise, that no neck putty was needed to fill in at the attachment point. There are however other characteristics that the majority of King\'s Decoys have, including carved bill/head separation, were well sanded, have a primer and finish coat and have simple yet effective paint patterns. Like the majority of decoys carved in the late 1800\'s and early 1900\'s, King\'s mid and late career decoys all had hollowed out cedar \"dugout\" bodies with the body halves also attached using a lead-based glue/caulk and were so well crafted you\'d be hard pressed to find one of his decoys with seam separation that is not perfectly intact.
Many of the decoys carved by Liberty Price, also of Manahawkin, very closely resemble those carved by Joe King although while King\'s output stopped or at least dramatically decreased around 1890, Price\'s output is widely accepted to be from c1870 to 1910, around the time of King\'s passing. Joe King\'s home of Manahawkin, was also the home of Joe Tom Cranmer (who carved fantastic black ducks) and his mentees Lou Cranmer of Cedar Run, NJ, who carved in the late 1800\'s and Bill Cranmer of Beach Haven, NJ, who carved in the early to mid 1900\'s. Joe Tom Cranmer\'s decoys were similar in style and construction to the decoys of his neighbor, Samual Bounds, also of Manahawkin.Both of their decoys had a prominently carved tail, unlike the more gentle slope of the decoy\'s of Joe King. Like his mentor Joe Tom, Bill Cranmer made a well-constructed, highly effective working bird and one of his decoys won an award at the 1948 New York Decoy Show. Bill Cranmer\'s later decoys were influenced by the decoys made by Lem and Steve Ward of Crisfield, Maryland.
THE CHARACTERISTICS of JOE KING\'S DECOYS & HIS LATER YEARS!!!!
Joe King quite possibly lived during one of the most prolific eras in waterfowling history. As noted, Joe King is credited as beingthe maker of the first Jersey styled birds,and to his credit, they were considered so adequately aesthetic and functional that a great many of the subsequent carvers in the region made no dramatic changes to his design, but rather tweaked them with their own ideas like wide, sweeping tails and neat, forward-aimed heads. The final touch to the decoys from the late 1800\'s was the wonderful, yet somewhat simplistic paint jobs that employed using a high quality oil and lead based marine paint which was also a carry over from the local boat building knowledge on what to use to best protect the surface of a boat for the longest period of time possible.The painting techniques and the quality of the paint used was extremely serviceable and the number of decoys, like this decoy up for sale, that exist today in original paint is a testament to the quality of his finishes.
ALL ABOUT THIS AWESOME JOE KING BLACK DUCK UP FOR sale!!!!
This \"Joe King\" Black Duck decoy up for sale is perfectly symmetrically carved and painted with an awesome mid-height and contented, yet reared-back posed head and neck, which was quite a typical posture for the area during the late 1800\'s and after the turn of the century in the coastal areas of New Jersey. The bill is extraordinarily accurately carved and has perfect head/bill separation with Nice Paint including a greenish/teal paint job with a black nail painted n the end. The head is as solidly mounted as the day it was made and there is a cosmetic-only old and tight check in the neck, but it is as tight as this decoy was made and may have happened when it was freshly carved as it is that old and stress-free. But like I say, the head on this decoy is as tight and solidly attached to the decoy like the day it was made with no movement whatsoever, and if you ask me I think this only adds to the aura of this 130 Year Old Decoy. The body on this decoy is as solid as the day it was made and although I am sure it saw some action being gunned over, it has withstood the test of time remarkably. However, it is hard to tell how much action this decoy saw, as it was so well made that it may have seen seen more action, it just looks like it was never gunned over. That is quite a testament to this decoy as it is in such awesome original condition, including, or I should say especially, the very thick original paint on the head looks awesome and it has a very early and quite spectacular combing to it except the eye groove and the pate. This Black Duck has all of its original paint with negligible small and scattered spots on the decoy\'s bottom from most likely being set on a shelf for display. This Nice Black Duck Decoy was life-size carved and measures exactly 16-7/8\" long x 5-7/8\" wide x 6-7/8\" tall and weighs a very rig-manageable 2-lbs., 2-oz. A Real Black Duck in the wild is around 22\" long from bill nib to tail and if you stretched this decoy out it would come to almost exactly 22\"; a pretty good life-sized depiction for this decoy. I can only imagine how neat it would be to see a dozen and a half of these great, high-profiled and Very Important Black Duck decoys riding in tandem over 2 foot waves on Manahawkin Bay with a small flock of migrating Black Ducks circling these decoys a good four or five times before they finally commit and start dropping in. This truly important part of decoy making history would make a great addition to any collection of historic duck decoys and shorebirds. Some of this Information is from Henry Fleckenstein\'s Book \"New Jersey Decoys\", a Must Read for the Serious Collector!! If you have any questions or would like any additional photos feel free to email me. Thanks for looking.
is INFORMATION ABOUT \"ELKANAH COBB\" and THE COBB FAMILY from COBB\'S ISLAND, VIRGINIA!!
- ELKANAH B. COBB Owned and Gunned Over This Decoy Up For sale!!
- BELOW: FOLLOW ELKANAH\'S ROOTS BACK TO THE MAYFLOWER!!!!!!!
Nathan F. Cobb was born in Eastham, Massachusetts on December 5, 1797. His father, Elkanah Cobb, who was born in 1757, was a direct descendant of Elder Henry Cobb who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1632 from England. In 1639, Henry Cobb moved to Barnstable, on Cape Cod, which was to become the family hometown for several generations. Elkanah Cobb, Nathans father, was a grandson of Stephen Hopkins, Jr. who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts on the Mayflower with his father and was the fourteenth signer of the Mayflower Compact on November 21, 1620. He was also a privateer during the Revolutionary War and was captured and confined in a British prison in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After the war, Nathans father built boats and entered into the whaling and fishing business out of Eastham. He married Jerusha Foster Cobb who bore him three sons Elkanah Jr., Scotter, and Nathan and six daughters, Jerusha, Betsy, Sarah, Mary, and two others whose names are not known.
Nathan was raised in Eastham, working in the family business with his father and brothers and at the age of 23, on December 25, 1820, married Nancy Doane of Eastham. Nancy Doane Cobb was a frail woman and her health suffered during the long hard winters in Massachusetts. It was suggested the Nancy Cobbs condition might improve living in a warmer climate, so Nathan sold his share in the business to his brothers, packed his family and belongings, and headed south.
The exact date that Nathan Cobb left Eastham is where controversy first enters this tale. Nathan and Nancy had three sons, Nathan, Jr. who was born in Eastham, Massachusetts in 1825, Warren D. who was born in Eastham in 1833, and Albert F., who was born in 1836, but it is not known for sure whether he was born in Eastham, Massachusetts or Northampton County, Virginia. On Nathan Jr.s and Warrens tombstones, it states that they were born in Eastham, Massachusetts, but on Alberts stone, no mention is made and at least one account has him born in Virginia. However, the family genealogy lists him as born in Eastham, Massachusetts and several other stories of the Cobb family say that Nathan packed his belongings and his three sons when he set sail from Cape Cod heading south. That would put his arrival in Virginia after 1836, but if Albert was indeed born in Northampton County, then a likely date that he Cobb family came to Virginia would be in the three year period after Albert was born in 1836. Whenever they left, Nathan, Nancy and the boys took everything that they owned in order to begin a new life in a more southerly climate. They even took sawn lumber on board their schooner with which to build a home. The story goes that a storm on the high seas forced them to seek refuge along the Virginia shore near a small village now called Oyster in Northampton County. The townspeople were friendly and welcomed the Cobbs into their homes. Nathan and Nancy decided to settle there and build their home. Nathan opened a small store in town and soon settled into a prosperous life. Nathan was a sea faring man though, and after a short time in a quiet little village, he longed to be nearer to his tradition, engaging in some sort of livelihood actively involved with the sea. Many were the sailing ships that ran aground along the treacherous Cape of Virginia and Nathan senses there might be a lucrative salvage business close at hand. He realized, however, that he needed to be closer to the opportunity and he set about to purchase an offshore island that he had his eye on for some time. It lay about eight miles directly out from Oyster and was owned by a man named William Fitchett. Family legend holds that one day Nathan discovered a brownish liquid seeping from the sand while out on the island and suspected that it might be salt, a precious commodity in those days. He secretly boiled some of the liquid down to evaporate the moisture and found that it was salt. He negotiated with Fitchett to purchase the island for one hundred dollars in gold and a wagon load of the salt which he had discovered on the island. On March 11, 1839 the deed to Great Sand Shoal Island was signed over to Nathan and Nancy Cobb. The family home in Oyster was dismantled and rebuilt on the island, hereafter to be known as Cobbs Island. Nancy whose health never really improved, but rather continued to deteriorate, died in 1840 shortly after the family moved to the island. She was buried on the island, but her resting place was moved in later years to a farm just north of Oyster on the two years Nathan had married Esther Carpenter who did a commendable job of taking care of Nathan and raising his sons. The salvage business flourished and Nathan and his boys saved many mens lives as well as the cargo in their ships. They would contract with the owners for a certain percentage of what they were able to salvage.
Each of Nathans sons married and built homes for their families on the island. Everyone got along well and the Cobbs prospered. Nathan Jr. and his wife Sally Dowty had one son, born in 1852, and named Elkanah, after his great grandfather. Warren and his wife, Emily Roberts, had three sons and a daughter, George W., born in 1869, Arthur H., born in 1870. Henry Burr, and Eva, born in 1882. Albert F. married Ellen Doughty and they had two sons and a daughter, Thomas L., born 1868, Lucius, born 1870, and Addie Sarah, born 1889. For the Cobb family living was good on the island.
The fishing and hunting were unsurpassed on their bountiful paradise and as the sons grew older they supplemented the family income by fishing and gunning for the market. The ducks and geese or fish would be taken by the family, packed in ice and hauled to the inlet to await a passing freighter heading north along the coast. The ship was hailed and a percentage was negotiated with the captain for hauling the shipment to northern cities.
Wild game was everywhere and the amount taken was determined by how well one could shoot. Old man Nathan, known fondly as Big Nathan or the boss in later years, and his sons were deadly marksmen and the great quantities of waterfowl sent to satisfy the northern palates were duly noted by the sportsmen. Hostilities which led to the War Between the States were as yet untempered and the war was ten years off. Sport gunning was becoming more popular as travel became a little easier and the Cobbs began to take a few paying guests on the Island for a little shooting. A trip to Cobbs Island to gun became celebrated and the guest roster blossomed in the 1850s. The War did little to dampen the zest for hunting and after it was over, even more Americans turned to shooting for recreation. The Cobbs decided to build a hotel to accommodate the guests and a long rambling structure evolved as it was enlarged. A chapel was built and Tammany Hall, a building for the domestic servants, was raised. The hunters, who came in the fall and winter for ducks and geese, came back in the spring and summer for the incredible shorebird shooting and they brought along their families for fishing and bathing. The hotel and its fame as a summer resort grew and in 1867 a ballroom was added and a Band of Music arranged to play for the guests. A bowling alley and billiard room helped make Cobbs Island the most famous and popular seaside resort south of Atlantic City in New Jersey. June 8, 1868 edition of the Sun, Baltimores leading newspaper, advertised Sea bathing at Cobbs Island: The proprietors of the above famous resort, encouraged by the very liberal support heretofore accorded them, will open the season of 1869 with increasing efforts to merit public favor. The shooting and fishing are unequaled on this continent. An abundance of boats, with experienced men to attend will always be at the command of the guests. The table arrangements, which gave general satisfaction last season, will be further improved, having engaged the best cook in Virginia, with first class attentive service. Terms: $3.00 a day; $18.00 a week; $60.00 a month.
The Cobbs also sold a few lots and cottages were built on them by the owners for summer homes.
The hotel register, which is still in the hands of the Cobbs descendants, show that the resort was well patronized in the 1870s and 1880s. Visitors from every Atlantic Coast state except New Hampshire lodged there in the years from 1874 to 1882, although more than half of all guests came from Baltimore, Washington and Richmond. So many guests now visited the Island that the Cobb family purchased a farm on the mainland in order to provide home grown vegetables and fruits for their hotel. They raised livestock and chickens for their own beef, pork, and fowl, to supplement the wild game and seafood dinners on their hotel menu. On the creek in Oyster they built a dam to form a pond for a mill and constructed a tide mill there to grind their grain for flour. It became so well known in the surrounding area that the village was called Cobbs Mill for years after.
The Cobbs purchased one of the first steamers used on the seaside in Norfolk and named it the NWA COBB for the brothers Nathan, Warren, and Albert. Until that time guests were ferried the eight miles from Oyster on the mainland by sailing schooner, one of them named the CLARA COMBS OF COBB ISLAND. The Chesapeake Bay steamers, plying their trade between Baltimore and Norfolk brought passengers for Cobbs Island regularly to Cherrystone Creek on the bayside where they disembarked and traveled by carriage to Nottinghams Beach near what is now Chesapeake on the seaside. From there Captain Cobb or men in his employ took the guests by sailing sloop or schooner to the Island. By 1868 the steamer SUE out of Baltimore carried the patrons directly to a dock at the hotel on Cobbs Island. After the railroad was completed to Cape Charles City on October 25, 1884, a station was established at Chesapeake for passengers going to the Island. It was named then Cobbs Station and it made travel to the seaside resort somewhat easier. The Island, the hotel, and the Cobbs prospered through the mid-Victorian era. The fame of the place spread widely. Shortly after the Civil War, Nathan, Sr.s second wife died and he left the running of the business to his three sons. He married for a third time, to Nancy Richardson, and purchased a farm along the seaside road in Capeville, about six miles south of Oyster. Here he retired to do a little farming and take life easy. He had built a successful business on his island with the left of his sons, who had formed Cobb Brothers and Company to run the enterprise, and he deserved a rest. Nathan F. Cobb, Sr., born in 1797 in Eastham, Massachusetts, passed away in 1890 at his farm in Capeville, Northampton County, Virginia. He is buried outside of the kitchen window next to the farmhouse, which his still standing, so that the light from the kitchen window might always shine on his grave. Nearby his third wife Nancy Richardson Cobb is resting in a small family cemetery.
Nathans sons and their sons carried on the family tradition of southern hospitality on their island refuge serving the sporting gunners and their families to the finest recreational pursuits available along the eastern seaboard in that era. According to the hotel registers in the years 1881 to 1883 and an advertisement in the June, 1881 Peninsula Enterprise published in Accomack Courthouse, Virginia, a man by the name of J.T. Spady operated the Cobbs Island Hotel during that period. Nothing was learned of this person or his connection with the Cobbs. Perhaps he was just a hotel manager who controlled that portion of the business while the Cobbs handled the more important job of providing for the hunters.
In 1893, three years after the death of old Nathan and his youngest son Albert, both of whom died in 1890, a fierce hurricane struck the east coast and completely decimated all of the buildings, including the hotel, on Cobbs Island. It effectively destroyed the work of three generations of Cobbs in Virginia in just two short days. After the storm, a watch house type building was constructed on the island by Nathan Jr. and his son, Elkanah. It came to be known as the Cobb Clubhouse and a sport gunning business catering to patrons of previous years was slowly rebuilt by father and son. Nathan Jr. passed away on January 25, 1905, two years after his brother Warren, and the operation of the club fell to Elkenny as Nathan Jr.s only child was known to everyone. Nathan Jr. was buried in Cape Charles cemetery in the family plot and the inscription on his stone reads as follows:
\"Mariner and citizen who for years lived at Cobbs Island, Virginia and whose heroic self constituted work of helping the shipwrecked and distressed seamen, without renumeration, was replaced by the modern life saving Life Saving Service Station was established on Cobbs Island in 1874 and in 1877 it was put in the command of another New Englander, Captain Charles Crumb of Old Mystic, Connecticut. Both Arthur H. and George W. Cobb, sons of Warren D., were members of the Cobbs Island Life Saving Service before 1900. George Cobb later had a disagreement with the government after the Life Saving Service had become the Coast Guard and he quit to help run the Clubhouse on the island. George Isdell, who was closely associated with the Cobbs and owned the only rail service in Oyster for pulling boats, also helped run the Cobb Clubhouse Gunning Service in the 1920s. At one time around the turn of the century and shortly thereafter he was captain of the DIXIE, the pleasure and gunning yacht of author Thomas Dixon who enjoyed many years of excellent funning at Cobbs Island.
In the late 1920s just before the Wall Street crash, the Cobb clubhouse burned to the marsh and Elkanah dejectedly left his beloved island and settled across the creek in Oyster on the Cobb family farm where he had built himself a distinctive home on the edge of the creek. A few shanties were left standing on the island and George Cobb, Elkanahs cousin, stayed to continue to take out the few sport gunners who still came to the once famed shooting grounds of Cobbs Island. George struggled along until the eel grass blight of 1932 ended the brant shooting and then in 1933 the savage hurricane, which practically wiped everything out along the Virginia and Maryland coast, completely devastated Cobbs Island and what little was left there. The last boat off the island during the storm was that of the United States Coast Guard and they tried to take George Cobb with them. Never having forgotten his grudge from years past, George vowed to stay on the island rather than leave by way of their boat. He did stay and was lost to the sea. His remains were never found and a memorial stone is placed in the family plot in Cape Charles cemetery.
Thus ended the Cobb Family saga on Cobbs Island, a story that lasted for very close to one hundred years. The island still lies off the coast today, maintaining its silent vigil out across the ocean, but nothing of the Cobbs remains there. Bits and pieces of their history have been written before and inaccuracies and contradictory statements appear in most stories. I have tried through interviews with family members and friends, photographs, researching of historical records, and scanning of previous writings, to put together all of these bits and pieces into their proper and correct order so that future historians will have a more accurate base with which to begin their study.
Intertwined deeply with all of this Cobb Family history is our primary concern, the Cobb decoys. However, even though family history can be accurately recorded, little is known for sure or can be documented concerning the decoys. It is recorded in associated history of waterfowling in the surrounding areas and in Cobb inventories containing mention of tame geese, that, almost assuredly, the Cobbs early-on used live decoys. Just when they started making wooden decoys is not known, but it could have been as early as the Civil War period, when they were already engaged in a profitable sport gunning business. All three sons were then in their twenties or thirties and old man Nathan had been settled on the island for at least twenty years. More than likely it was later, in the 1870s or 1880s. Wildfowl were so plentiful and with little shooting before the Cobbs, probably unwary, that decoys were an unnecessary addition to ones gunning rig before that time. Besides, though they had paying guests earlier, that is when sport gunning in America and on Cobbs Island was at its peak and with a number of guides and blinds, each with a couple of gunners, rigs of decoys probably became necessary to lure in the birds.
Whether Nathan Sr. made any decoys or not can probably never be verified, but with him leaving the island shortly after the War Between the States, it is quite possible that he never did. At last one collector feels that those Cobb decoys with a carved, backward N might have been made earlier by Nathan Cobb Sr. as that was the practice in English writings before 1830, but this seems unlikely as there are birds obviously by the same hand with both backward and normal Ns carved in the bottom. Different facts and observations that may be clues to the Cobb decoy mystery will be listed and discussed here in no particular order because we know of no order to follow, chronologically as to date or maker, either one. Cobb decoys were made both hollow and solid. Many, and probably most, of the solid birds were made out of spars from the wrecked sailing vessels that the Cobb family salvaged along their island shores. Some are deep bodied and fat, others almost cylindrically round and not so large. The how decoys displayed the same size difference characteristics as the solid birds. Of all the Cobb decoys I handled and photographed, only the hollow birds had the good original Ns and Es with serifs carved in the bottom. None of the solid birds did. Some few of the solid birds I examined had plain small Ns without serifs carved in the bottom. These appeared to be old and original. All of the shorebirds are solid and many of those do not have the good initials as we shall refer to the ones with the serifs including Ns, Es, and As. I do not know of any other solid Cobb birds with the good initials, but that is not to say that there are none.
Some of the brant and geese have reaching or feeding root heads and necks and some have normal positioned, upright heads and necks. Most of the reaching or feeding heads seem to be on the hollow birds, but this does not hold true in all cases. Some of the necks are inletted into the body and some are applied in a normal manner. The work on most of the inletted heads is of the highest quality and indicates an exceptional joiner performed the task. On others wedges are applied as shims, sometimes on the sides, but most often in the back to fill the inlet cut into the body fully. This was a common practice in joinery work in the nineteenth century. A Cobb decoy with an inletted head is not necessarily a better quality bird than those with applied of the good hollow decoys do have their lead pad ballast weights attached with brass screws, which Mackey stated was not a characteristic of Nathan Cobbs decoys. Not all of the decoys do have brass screws, although the weights could have been lost through the years and replaced Cobb Island decoys are found with both carved eyes and glass eyes. The carved eyes are exceptionally well done and in some instances merit a close examination to determine that they are carved and are not tacks inset into the head. I believe there is a strong argument to indicate that the glass eyed birds could date after 1877. Most collectors of Cobb decoys agree that the glass eyes are original to the birds and were applied by the makers. Glass eyes were commonly available to the American taxidermy market in the second d half of the nineteenth century, when the mounting and displaying of birds of all species was in vogue. Captain Charles Crumb, whose original assignment papers placing him in command of the Cobbs Island Life Saving Station in the year 1877 are in the hands of his descendants and were studied by the writer, was an accomplished and learned ornithologist and taxidermist. He quite naturally had access to the German glass eye market and almost without question supplied the Cobb decoy makers with their eyes for the birds. This would have had to be after 1877 when he moved to Virginia to take command of his new post.
Some of the Cobb or Cobbs Island decoys have oak bills separately made, inserted completed through the head and splined with a wedge from the rear, while the others have a normally made bill that is an integral part of the head and neck and are rather bulkily carved, perhaps to reduce breakage. All of the good hollow decoys seem to have this latter type while the solid, unmarked birds have the inserted oak type. All of the shorebirds, whether initialed or not have the inserted and splined oak bills. It is theorized that Nathan Jr. carved the N in his decoys, Elkanah, his son, the E and either Albert, his brother or Arthur, his nephew, the A. The A sometimes resembles the Masonic A and I tried to find out if any of the Cobbs belonged to the Masonic Order. One person said they thought that Arthur may have, but they were not sure. In later years both Arthur and Elkanah had brands made to brand their rigs. William Bud Taylor of Oyster who knew both Arthur and Elkanah after they had settled in Oyster to live, remembered that Arthur branded everything and anything that could be carried off with his A.H. COBB brand, particularly his oars and his decoys. Elkanahs brand was E.B. COBB and he also branded his decoys in later years, so his earlier birds have the carved E. It seems likely that the birds with an A carved in them were made by Arthur rather than Albert and they would be his earlier carvings. The branding irons were probably made and used sometime after 1890. There are some hollow Cobb Island decoys that do not have the typical Cobb style split wing and tail carving. These birds have a forward sloping platform on which the head and neck sit and a number of them are branded A.H. COBB. There are two pictured in the book Duck Shooting Along the Atlantic Tidewater and they are assigned to Arthur Cobb. There are several pictured in this book and they are attributed to Arthur Cobb, grandson of Nathan Cobb Sr.
BELOW ARE MORE PHOTOS OF DECOYS CARVED BY ONE OF THE COBB FAMILY MEMBERS!! (These Great Photos and Much of the Information on the The Cobb Family is from Henry Fleckenstein\'s Book \"Southern Decoys of Virginia and the Carolinas\", A Must Read!! Also Some is From the Nov./Dec. 1998 Issue of Decoy Magazine, Which is Just One Of Hundreds of Back Issues of the Magazine That is a Must to (BELOW) :This Decoy is FROM THE \"WORLD FAMOUS\" COLLECTION OF KRISTINA BARBARA JOHNSON of PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY (Her \"WHITE INK STAMP\" is Just Below the Weight)
PHOTO of the Late KRISTINA BARBARA JOHNSON of Princeton, New Jersey
PROVENANCE: FROM THE WORLD FAMOUS COLLECTION OF KRISTINA BARBARA JOHNSON of PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY (HER COLLECTION STAMP ON BOTTOM)
Kristina was a lawyer, art collector and lover of life and all that life had to offer. She lived large; her energy inextinguishable. Guided by her heart, she left an inedible mark on everyone she met.
Born in Berlin, Germany, Kristina came to this country as a student. Her early career was in modeling and advertising. She was an agent for Andy Warhol, Raymond Savignac, Man Ray and other pop culture icons of the time. Versed in several languages, she specialized in engaging foreign artists for American journals and Life magazine.
From cowboys to cars, Kristina became enthralled by anything quintessentially American. She amassed the largest single-owner collection of whaling artifacts, books and manuscripts and became a leading historian in the field. She founded the Whale Research Foundation, Princeton, N.J.
In the mid-80s, she sent the collection off into the world with four sales at Sothebys and two sales at Swann Galleries. She donated her meticulously indexed library to a maritime historical society in San Francisco.
Kristina served on several nonprofit governance boards, including the Arts Council of Princeton, the American Folk Art Museum, the South Street Seaport Museum, The National Maritime Society and the New Jersey Ballet Company.
Her service to the American Folk Art Museum in New York City spanned over 40 years. During this time, she curated several exhibitions, inaugurated an annual lecture series and created a scholarship fund for the Folk Art Institute. She established and contributed to The Clarion, which evolved into one of the most respected scholarly journals in the field of folk art.
Kristina authored, contributed to or was featured in a multitude of news journals, books and other publications including Art and sale (where she was an associate editor), Arts and Antiques (where she was featured as one of Americas 100 Top Collectors for three consecutive years), Town and Country, Forbes, Inquirer and Mirror, Nantucket; Money, Life and the Time-Life books series. She was featured in two nationally televised programs, including Good Morning America.
She lectured nationally and internationally at such venues as the Smithsonian, DAR (D.C.), the Melville Society, Mystic Seaport, the New York and New Jersey Historical Societies, Princeton University, NYU and the American Museum in Bath, England. Kristina was nominated as one of four candidates for Woman of the Year for the Arts at a Bicentennial Celebration sponsored by the Smithsonian in 1974.
Voluntary and paid consulting jobs included the Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum, American Association of Museums, Ford Foundation; Time-Life Publications, the White House (twice) and Gracie Mansion. She was an advisor to the Ford Foundation, American Federation of the Arts and the Nantucket Whaling Museum.
She curated, consulted for and contributed to a multitude of exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum, The American Folk Art Museum, the Nantucket and New Bedford Whaling Museums and others. She was most proud of her renowned hooked rug show, American Classics in Princeton.
Perhaps the accomplishment of which Kristina took the most pride was becoming a lawyer in 1978. She authored several legal publications and applied herself to intellectual property where she could combine her love for art with her new-found education. She also loved to collect and drive vintage American cars.
