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Inside Decoys from Shelburne Museum

Right side of Holmes Bluebill drake decoy, c. 1880

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Benjamin Holmes (1843-1912) Holmes was a Stratford, Connecticut carpenter who learned to carve decoys from Albert Laing (1811-1886), considered to be the originator of what has come to be known as the Houstatonic school of decoy carving (Engers 2000, p. 81). Unlike Laing, Holmes was not a hunter (Chitwood 1987, 34), and he supplemented his income as a carpenter and skiff builder by making decoys (Knapp 2002, 238).

Like Laing, Holmes made hollow decoys fashioned from three pieces of wood. According to Chitwood, Holmes' earlier decoys were similar in construction to those made by Laing, but eventually Holmes modified the technique, employing patterns for efficiency (Chitwood 1987, 34). The body was made of a hollowed block and a base board, measuring approximately 5/8 inches thick. The head was carved separately and attached with metal fasteners to the body. The nails holding the two sections of the body together are more closely spaced in Holmes' bodies than in Laing's. Chitwood opines that Laing's early decoys constructed with bottom boards leaked, and Holmes overcame that problem by using a lead-based adhesive in the joint and spacing his nails more closely (Chitwood 1987, 21).

Benjamin Holmes participated in what is considered to be the first recorded public exhibition of decoys which occurred at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition where he showed a a rig of 12 blue-bills (Levison and Headley 1991, 125). Joel Barber acquired one of these and included a watercolor rendering of it in his book, however that decoy is now considered lost (Shaw 2011).

After Holmes' death, his widow sold uncompleted blocks of wood to another area decoy maker. Other makers made use of Holmes' patterns (Engers 2000, 82).

The Shelburne Museum owns 13 decoys made by or attributed to Benjamin Holmes. Eleven were formerly part of Joel Barber's collection, including the bluebill drake decoy and one of the black duck decoys included in this study. The other two were previously owned by decoy collector Richard T. Moeller. The Whistler hen and drake decoys in this study, though attributed to Holmes, are suspected to have had their heads replaced by the third notable maker in the Stratford area, Charles “Shang” Wheeler (1872-1949). Similarly, one of the black ducks by Albert Laing in this study is thought to have been re-headed by Holmes.
Bluebill Drake, 1952-192.189; 27.FD12-26-B This decoy attributed to Benjamin Holmes was formerly in Joel Barber’s collection and bears an inscription in pencil on the underside that indicates that it was once part of a rig owned by Cappy Wicks. No maker’s mark is visually evident on the underside of the decoy perhaps due to the presence of a square wood base affixed to the decoy with nails. Marks consistent with twine, perhaps rigging lines, are noted in the white paint on the decoy’s body and suggest that the piece had been used in the field. The painted surfaces are worn and exhibit a slight green-yellow auto fluorescence when examined under a long wave ultraviolet lamp. A tear-drop shaped lead weight is attached to the underside of the decoy with a single flat-headed slotted screw.

The radiographs confirm that the decoy is constructed in a manner generally consistent with Holmes’ described working technique(Engers 2000, 82). The head is carved in a single piece. Yellow and black glass eyes are inserted on either side of the head. Cut nails, about 3 cm. in length, and what may be a lead-containing adhesive attach the head to the body as well as the two pieces of wood that make up the body. The adhesive has a broken appearance and especially evident in the anterior-posterior view image. The body is constructed from two pieces of wood, with the lower base board measuring about 7/8 inches (2 cm.) in thickness. The head and body are riddled with round x-ray opaque objects, most likely bird shot, indicating that the decoy had indeed been used in the field. The maker's stamp, “B. Holmes”, is located under the front bar of the wood base, is clearly evident in the anterior-posterior view, and easily read once the digital image was flipped.
Hollow decoys In his chapter on hollow decoys in Wild Fowl Decoys, Barber extensively quotes from a work by Joseph W. Long entitled American wild-fowl shooting, published in 1874, when, in Barber's estimation, the craft had reached the apex of its development (Barber 1934). After establishing why wood decoys are superior to those made of rubber, Long then describes how hollow decoys were fabricated. According to Long, they were made from three pieces of wood; two to make up the hollowed body and one for the head. The pieces would be roughly cut to size before being adhered or fastened to one another and final finishing. After sanding, the work was sealed with shellac, primed and painted using artist oil colors.

To support Long's description, Barber outlines the manner in which decoys by carvers such as Albert Laing and Benjamin Holmes were made. Both makers were active in the Stratford, Connecticut area in the last half of the nineteenth century.