Early White Winged Scoter Decoy by Elmer Crowell (East Harwich: 1862-1952), circa 1910

Early White Winged Scoter Decoy by Elmer Crowell (East Harwich: 1862-1952), circa 1910, a hand carved and painted large decoy in the simple paint of a white winged scoter. This is an early pre-stamp model in orignal paint, with possibly some in-use touch-up to the white wing patches.

This decoy was part of a well-known rig Crowell made for his good friend, the author Joseph C. Lincoln, for use at his summer camp on Monomoy Island. Lincoln featured Crowell in several of his novels, most especially as the main character in “Queer Judson” who carved decoys, whirligigs and other Cape Cod folk art. This decoy descended within the Lincoln family until sold by Joseph’s nephew.

Measures: 7-3/4 in H x 18-1/4 in L x 6-1/2 in W

A. Elmer Crowell (1862-1952) of East Harwich, Massachusetts, is known as one of the greatest decoy makers and bird carvers of all time. The lifelike quality of his three-dimensional portrayals of American wildfowl is unsurpassed. He acquired his intimate understanding of avian anatomy and plumage patterns over the course of a lifetime spent observing and hunting Cape Cod’s abundant indigenous and migratory bird populations.

Before establishing his carving studio in 1912, he worked as a hunting guide, camp manager, market gunner, cranberry farmer, and exterminator. Crowell was inspired to start his studio by the passage of the latest in a series of federal and state hunting laws aimed at bird conservation. He decided to focus fulltime on making decoys and decorative bird “models” for sale. Although Crowell had carved decoys for his own use since he was a teenager, and later for a “who’s who” of well-to-do patrons, he found a new market for his decoys and ornamental bird carvings in collectors and tourists who appreciated them as exquisite works of art. (Biography from the Shelburne Museum).

Joseph C. Lincoln (1870 – 1944) was born in in Brewster (on Cape Cod), but had to move with his mother to Chelsea, Massachusetts, after the death of his father. His literary career celebrating “old Cape Cod” can partly be seen as an attempt to return to an Eden from which he had been driven by family tragedy. His portrayal of Cape Cod can also be understood as a pre-modern haven occupied by individuals of old Yankee stock which was offered to readers as an antidote to an America that was undergoing rapid modernization, urbanization, immigration, and industrialization.

Lincoln’s work frequently appeared in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and The Delineator. Lincoln was aware of contemporary naturalist writers, such as Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser, who used American literature to plumb the depths of human nature, but he rejected this literary exercise. Lincoln claimed that he was satisfied “spinning yarns” that made readers feel good about themselves and their neighbors. In his day he was a nation-wide best seller, and six films and a short were based on his work. If you have never read one of his novels, you should… they are delightful and classic New England “local color” literature.

Upon becoming successful, Lincoln spent his winters in northern New Jersey, near the center of the publishing world in Manhattan, but summered in Chatham in a shingle-style house named “Crosstrees” that was located on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. He died at the age of 74, in Winter Park, Florida.