Bob Jobes’ workshop is messy. Old posters pinned to the low ceiling curl down at the edges. There’s hardly a bare surface anywhere. The air smells of wood dust, paint, tradition.
Jobes carves wooden duck decoys, a craft so revered in Havre de Grace, Md., that the bayside city proclaims itself the decoy capital of the world. The Havre de Grace Decoy Museum serves as a bricks-and-mortar testament to that pride.
In his modest shed tucked behind some houses on the north end of town, Jobes tries to balance the pressing matter of earning a living with a dedication to doing his work the same way it has been done by those who came before him, including his father.
“There’s a lot of handwork that goes in here that you don’t even know,” he said as his hands instinctively ran over the miniature ducks he was sanding. “We can’t compete with what’s made overseas.”
Thankfully for Jobes, the people who seek out his products aren’t looking for cheap, mass-produced items. While originally intended for the practical purpose of luring the area’s abundant waterfowl into hunters’ sights, decoys are now mostly prized by collectors who wouldn’t dare set them afloat.
“There are a few hunters that are traditionalists” who still use wooden decoys, said Jeannie Vincenti from behind the desk of the Havre de Grace storefront she maintains with her husband, Pat, another leading local carver.
But even those hunters wouldn’t think of using most of the merchandise displayed at Vincenti Decoys, which ranges in price from less than $100 per duck to $4,500 for a pair. Age and condition, in addition to the carver, are the primary factors driving price.
Such hefty appraisals amuse Jane Currier, who keeps some of her late Uncle James’ carvings in her Currier House Bed and Breakfast. He’d carve his decoys out of old telephone poles dropped off behind his house. Now they can fetch four figures. “All I can think of is he’s up there laughing his head off, because he used to sell them for $3 a pair,” she said.
Less likely to garner top dollar would be a former working decoy. Frequently used ducks would be repainted every year or so, with some eventually going under the brush 50 or more times, according to the Decoy Museum.
Even that kind of effort was probably preferable to the practice of early Dutch settlers, who used live, tame ducks to attract their wild brethren. Next came a rough version of the decoy, shaped out of reeds. Demand for the wooden variety took off after the Civil War, spurring a Havre de Grace tradition that flourished well into the 20th century.
Today, you won’t have a hard time finding evidence of the city’s love affair with decoys. They sit in people’s windows – a long-necked swan here, a mallard there. Restaurants like to decorate with them, too, Jobes said. Problem is, there just aren’t as many people making them anymore.
“It’s a dying art, but you’re hoping that young people come along,” Vincenti said.
The museum is a steadfast advocate of that art.
A relatively recent addition to the 25-year-old museum, the “What Is a Decoy” exhibit not only explains the history behind the imitation birds but also the precise work that goes into making them. A series of carvings shows the evolution of a block of wood into a painted duck head. Several monitors play videos featuring local carvers demonstrating techniques such as chopping a decoy into shape or painting it to realistic effect.
The most engaging area of the museum is the gallery displaying hundreds of decoys made by area craftsmen. (As in other parts of the building, stained-glass windows portraying the favorite fowl ring the room.) In addition to spotlighting their decoys, the exhibit profiles the men who have become household names in Havre de Grace and the wider decoy-collecting community. It’s easy to lose yourself among the glass cases filled with their mallards, swans, canvasbacks and any number of other species. The decoys are definitely an endearing bunch, vacant eyes notwithstanding.
The gallery looks out on the water where the Susquehanna River flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Despite the less than ideal weather, I walked along the city’s Promenade, a.k.a. boardwalk. A gaggle of geese paddled in front of me, and farther down the shore, a group of mallards rode the waves crashing into a small cove.
I wondered whether any of them could tell the difference between a decoy and one of their own. I know I wouldn’t.
Currier House Bed and Breakfast: Truly a family B&B
I was the only guest at the Currier House Bed and Breakfast in Havre de Grace, Md., one recent night, but somehow I knew that I wasn’t alone.
It’s not that I entertained any visitors of the spectral variety, although given the house’s 1790s origins, it wouldn’t have surprised me had one or two popped by. Instead, I felt wrapped in a powerful sense of lived-in-ness, a history as thick as the blankets piled on the bed in my room.
Owner Jane Currier wasted no time in acquainting me with the storied past of both the house and her family. After choosing the cheery Jeffers Room – a free upgrade from Jane, who said it had the best view for watching the storm that was coming in over the water where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Susquehanna River – I learned that naval officer William Nicholson Jeffers took command of the Union ship the Monitor after its famous clash with the Virginia during the Civil War. Among his other accomplishments: assisting in the return of suspected Lincoln assassination conspirator John Surratt after his capture in Egypt. He also happens to have been the great-uncle of Jane’s mother.
Posted outside the room were photos of Jeffers, including one of him aboard the Monitor, a cannonball-inflicted pockmark just to his left.
The family love carried over into my room, where the decor included a colorful early-20th-century marriage certificate and a diagram mapping out various kinfolk. A cluster of photos of Jane’s maternal relatives smiled at me from around the antique desk and mirror where I put on my makeup the next morning.
That evening, I hopscotched my way down the squeaky wooden stairs for a snack of tea and white chocolate chip cookies in the dining room. Even though I had the B&B to myself, the historical gravitas inspired me to behave with hushed respect. The electric teakettle, however, had no such scruples. It hissed and whistled enough to drive out any lingering spirits of the home’s former occupants, whose visages populated the wall above the dining room sideboard.
A haunting of a different kind plagued me as I tried to go to sleep: a ticking clock. Somewhat redundant, given the modern alarm clock next to the bed, the old-fashioned timepiece sat on a bureau just a few feet away. I moved it to the farthest recess of the room near the door (avoiding the closet for fear of forgetting it there in the morning). But I could still hear the ticking. Finally, the only way I could silence it was to smother it with two throw pillows. The whole thing was a little too Edgar Allan Poe for my taste.
The next morning, Jane filled me in on more history, telling me that the house has been in her family since 1861. The man who bought it, her great-grandfather Matthew Currier, was a ferryboat operator. Jane believes that he was shot on his boat for helping runaway slaves escape across the water to freedom. A secret passageway that leads to the attic supports the idea that he was harboring fugitives.
Subscribing to the theory that more is more, Jane has unloaded her basement and brought her many family heirlooms out for guests to see. The dining room displays a saddle that belonged to a Union soldier and a collection of unfinished duck decoys by her late uncle, a well-known local carver.
After breakfast, I hated to leave. The cold morning had brought the promised rain in sheets. I would much have preferred to retreat back to my antique bed and nestle into the warmth of the blankets and of the house’s radiating history.
Havre de Grace Insider’s Guide
STAY
Currier House Bed and Breakfast, 800 S. Market St., 800-827-2889, .
Admire the decoys carved by the owner’s uncle. Rooms from $95.
DINE
La Cucina, 103 N. Washington St., 410-939-1401, . Grab New York-style pizza to go, and eat by the water. Slices from $2.25.
The Vineyard Wine Bar, 142 N. Washington St., 443-502-2551, . Sample dozens of wines by the glass. Salads, small plates and flatbreads from $8.
PLAY
Havre de Grace Decoy Museum, 215 Giles St., 410-939-3739, . Monday-Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Sunday noon to 4 p.m. $6, seniors $5, ages 9 to 18 $2.
Captain Bob’s Decoys, 721 Ostego St., 410-939-1843, . Watch Bob Jobes in action, and browse his selection of wooden ducks.
Vincenti Decoys, 353 Pennington Ave., 888-573-6301, . Buy already made decoys or supplies to craft your own.
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