POTOMAC DECOY COLLECTORS ASSOCIATION

Meetings - first-half 2008

January 15, February 19, March 18, April 15, May 20, June 17.

Membership includes directors of East Coast waterfowl related museums, publishers of decoy related periodicals, authors of decoy related books, plus several contributing writers for various decoy related magazines. Members' decoys have been displayed at East Coast museums, state & federal government buildings and waterfowl shows. Three of PDCA’s authors are also appraisers and brokers who are recognized nationally. Two PDCA members run auction houses that specializes in decoys. A talented member is a highly regarded restorer of old decoys. There are several members who are competitive carvers with numerous awards to their credit. PDCA’s rosters are filled with individuals who are members of other decoy collecting clubs.

The club’s newsletter, the Potomac Flyer, is published nine times a year, with many members contributing stories or covering decoy related events. At our monthly meetings, many wonderful decoys have been displayed on competition tables, some changed hands, unknowns have been identified, and waterfowling history has been debated. It has also been an opportunity for the carving membership to display and compete in PDCA’s contemporary category. Club participants all agree that every member has broadened his or her knowledge while enjoying the social aspects of their club. If you are into decoys, and you live or visit the Washington DC area, the $20 membership fee is one of the best bangs for the buck in the decoy collecting community. If you are interested in attending one of the monthly meetings, or joining the flock, contact Jim Trimble @ 703-768-7264 or potomacduck@cox.net

It is not all politics here in the Nation's Capital, as many of us are decoy and gunning artifact collectors. A Gleason's Pictorial has an illustrated story, complete with box, gunner, and decoys, of sinkbox gunning on the tidal Potomac in 1853. The story line includes the punt gunner and reports "the hunter resorts to all manner of decoys,sometimes covering a skiff with green bushes and floating quietly with the current into the unsuspecting flock. The gun used is made expressly for this sport, and bears the name of "Potomac Duck Gun." One year earlier, a 1852 Gleason's Pictorial with similar story and illustration entitled "Duck shooting on the Potomac," featured three different gunning skiffs, complete with gunners and big guns, working the water on a partially moon lit evening. Frederick Tilp's book "This Was Potomac River" reports that over 150 gunning skiffs with large bore guns plied the river in the late 1800's. Many of those guns were made with Harper's Ferry Locks by machinists at the Washington Navy Yard. Civil War veteran, writer, author,and sportsman Alexander Hunter penned many waterfowling stories while living along the Potomac River on land that is now the Reagan National Airport.

Our Potomac River hosted many gun clubs established during the last quarter of two centuries past to the early first quarter of last century, whose membership and guests included a who's who of presidential, congressional, judicial, governmental, military and private industry gunners, all in their quest to kill ducks. At this point in time, many of the Potomac clubs were serviced by nearby railroad tracks, some with side rails to host plush private cars, that connected directly to Union Station in downtown Washigton, DC. "The Woodmont Story" by Henry P. Bridges documents the Woodmont Rod & Gun Club located north of Washington, DC (non-tidal water), with Washington, DC membership, whose members/guests included among others; Presidents James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt plus a mixture of popular celebrities of the day such as Amos & Andy, Gene Tunney, and Babe Ruth. The Jefferson Island Club located in Southern Maryland, 62 miles from the Nation’s Capital, was a hunting and fishing retreat for prominent Democrats. A massive 20-foot long Philippine mahogany dinning room table was a gift to a congressional member who had helped the Philippines gain their independence (hard wood-soft money). The club’s ornate bar was from the Old Murray Hotel in NYC. At a 1960 club party to honor members Harry S. Truman and Sam Rayburn, Truman signed the register “Harry Truman, Independence, MO., retired farmer." Another of these clubs, the Gunston Cove Club (GCC brand), located south of Washington, DC, had shore and off-shore blinds that literally over-looked from afar the Mount Vernon Plantation.

Guides from Back Bay & Currituck clubs along the Virginia/North Carolina border, staffed many of the clubs located on the Potomac's tidal portion (salt water)104-mile flow from Washington, DC to the Chesapeake Bay. With the Back Bay caretakers & guides came the Back Bay/Currituck style decoys. Potomac River watershed decendants along with their cousins in the Back Bay/Currituck region, share the same names and predecessors as those caretakers & guides outlined in Archie Johnson & Bud Coppedge's book "Gun Clubs & Decoys of Back Bay & Currituck Sound." Decoy replenishment, because of nearby railroad lines that connected north to Havre de Grace, was the Upper Chesapeake Bay style decoy. Large decoy rigs from these clubs that have surfaced over the years contain primarily canvasback decoys with a disproportionate number of those birds being hi-heads used for sinkbox gunning. Please see p 287 of George Starr's "Decoys of the Atlantic Flyway" describing one such rig found that contained Upper Chesapeake Bay as well as Back Bay/Currituck decoys. Sinkbox gunning was used extensively by the tidal Potomac River gun clubs until outlawed in 1934. The display of confiscated big guns at the U.S. Interior Department, Washington, DC, photo on p104 of "The Outlaw Gunner" by Harry Walsh, were confiscated from Potomac River gun clubs. Some of those gun clubs were located less than 20 miles down river from Washington, DC. Corb Reed of Chincoteague fame, lived, worked, and made gunning decoys for area gunners, as well as gunned the Potomac River for the 44 years (1924-1968 inclusive) that he literally lived in the shadow of the Nation's Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Dynamic city growth with resulting urban sprawl has encroached and over-run much of the Potomac's rich waterfowling history. If you have knowledge or historical waterfowling data as it relates to the Potomac River or greater Chesapeake Bay region, we would love to hear from you! Anyway, we would be pleased to send you, without obligation, our most recent newsletter by email attachment and let you judge for yourself! Contact potomacduck@cox.net

**IMPORTANT UPCOMING EVENT: East Coast Decoy Collectors (ECDC) Decoy collectors that include members from the Long Island, New Jersey, Potomac and Carolina collectors' associations will meet for a buy-sell-swap weekend, rain or shine, April 11 & 12, 2008 at the Best Western (410-745-3333) in St. Michael's, MD. This weekend includes motel rooms full of old decoys, all for buy-sell-swap, as well as a cookout Saturday evening. The public is welcome and free decoy appraisals are provided. Many take this opportunity to preview decoys at the nearby Guyette & Schmidt headquarters facility for their forthcoming spring decoy auction at Pheasant Run. Motel accommodations as well as ECDC membership ($15 dues) is required to display decoys for sale or swap. There is a cookout for ECDC members. Participants also receive a membership directory. Any questions, please contact potomacduck@cox.net

** IMPORTANT UPCOMING EVENT: The 6th annual J. Evans McKinney Old Decoy Contest to be held in conjunction with the 2008 Havre de Grace Decoy & Wildlife Art Festival will be held Saturday, May 3rd at the Middle School Gym. Entries will be accepted at the stage area from 10:00 a.m. until judging at noon. Joe Engers, Editor & Publisher of Decoy Magazine will head up a three-member judge’s panel. Participants must make a best faith effort to assure that all decoy entries were made prior to 1950. Each decoy will be limited to one category competition only. Matched pairs entered in other than a Matched Pair category will be considered as one entry. There is a competition ban, regardless of category, on last year’s winning birds. Competition decoys will be kept in a highly visible roped-off secure area and will not be handled by the public. At approximately 1:00p.m., the public will be invited to review the roped off and secured tables once the judges have made their selections. A blue ribbon will be awarded for each of the following ten category winners. The three-judge panel will also select a best in show winner. Winners will be requested to display their decoys and ribbons at the Havre de Grace Decoy Museum for a three month period.

1. Best Cecil County Canvasback decoy
2. Best George “Wash” Barnes decoy
3. Best Edwin Pearson decoy
4. Best Capt. Harry Jobes decoy (old deco age requirement waived)
5. Best Upper Bay Miniature decoy
6. Best Mid-Bay or Eastern Shore Matched Pair decoys
7. Best New Jersey Brant decoy
8. Best Virginia Bluebill decoy
9. Best Red Head decoy – any area
10. Best Unknown decoy

There will be no restrictions as to those who can participate or number of categories entered; however participants are restricted to no more than three birds per category. Competition issues will be resolved at the sole discretion of the competition chairman and/or competition chief judge. Any questions, please contact contest chairman Jim Trimble @ 703-768-7264 or potomacduck@cox.net

POTOMAC DECOY COLLECTORS ASSOCIATION

PDCA - COLLECTORS OF AMERICA'S FINEST FOLK ART - contact potomacduck@cox.net

Meetings - first-half 2008

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