New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 23 by Crown Carol Rivers Cheryl Wilson Charles Reagan

Author:Crown, Carol, Rivers, Cheryl, Wilson, Charles Reagan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2013-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Lynne Adele, Spirited Journeys: Self-taught Texas Artists of the Twentieth Century (1997); Henry Ray Clark, interview by William Steen, Artlies (Spring 2001); Patricia C. Johnson, Houston Chronicle (2 August 2006).

Cobb Family

The Cobb family carvers were among the most important Chesapeake Bay decoy makers. Around 1833, Nathan F. Cobb Sr. (1797–1890) moved his family from Cape Cod, Mass., to Virginia, where he was able in 1839 to acquire Sand Shoal Island, a barrier island off Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore. On this island, renamed Cobb Island, Nathan Sr. and his three sons operated a lucrative salvage business, hunted and fished for the market, and eventually operated one of America’s most celebrated hunting resorts. In addition to the hotel, the Cobb family resort offered a Methodist chapel, a ballroom, a bowling alley, and a billiards room. The resort, which functioned from 1860 until 1896, supplied visitors with tackle, guides, and decoys.

When the Cobb family first opened its hunting retreat, the flocks of small brant geese, which remained on the island all year, and the flocks of birds migrating through the region were so vast that hunters did not need decoys. Only after the birds decreased sometime around 1870 did the family begin producing decoys. It is not certain that Nathan Cobb Sr. produced decoys. Experts ascribe a majority of the decoys signed on the bottom with a serifed N to Nathan Jr. (ca. 1825–1905). Nathan Jr.’s son Elkanah (1852–?) incised his decoys with a serifed E. Decoys marked with an A are possibly the creations of Albert (1836–1890), another son of Nathan Sr., or of Arthur Cobb, a nephew of Nathan Jr.

For their decoys, the Cobb family exploited all sorts of wood at hand. They used broken spars and masts that had washed up on shore after the frequent shipwrecks on nearby shoals, waste lumber, salvaged driftwood, and roots. The sturdy driftwood and roots made for particularly outstanding decoys. These hard woods stood up well in the field, and their twisted shapes inspired expressivity and creativity. The Cobbs’ ability to suggest the birds’ movements and their use of naturally curved wood to echo the curving necks of geese became the signature of the influential Cobb Island style. The style, however, did not derive entirely from local sources. The Cobbs’ geese, ducks, and other shorebird decoys adopt and transform the characteristics of earlier New England decoys.

Cobb family decoys are among the items celebrated by the early collectors of American folk art. They are also among the most prized American decoys. With their elegant shapes and naturalistic painting, decoys made by Nathan Jr. fetch auction prices in the hundreds of thousands. Museums with Cobb family decoys include the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, the Shelburne Museum, the American Folk Art Museum, and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

CHERYL RIVERS

Brooklyn, New York

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