Over the years plover shorebird decoys have been found in different locations on the extreme east end of Long Island’s south fork. The decoys are carved in a distinctive style that would indicate a single maker. They are of a fairly simple design, but were undoubtedly very effective.
The first example I have found of a published photograph of one of the decoys is in Decoy Magazine March/April 1991, article on the “Annual Mid-Atlantic Wildfowl Festival,” Virginia Beach, Virginia. On page 35 are photographs of the winning birds in the “Vintage Decoy Competition” of which one of the “categories chosen by the show committee” that year was “Best Unknown Species Any Area.” The 2nd place winner of the category was “Long Island Golden Plover, late 1800s, Bob Gresham Collection." This is one of the decoys that would later bear the fabricated title of “Lafayette Seabury plover.”
The next appearance of one of these decoys by an unknown maker is an ad in the July/August 1997 issue of Decoy Magazine. The ad was placed by Long Island Decoy Collectors Association founding member, Frank Murphy. Along with the photo of the decoy it says, “Collector seeking Golden Plover decoys by this unknown Long Island maker,” with Frank Murphy's address and phone number. So in 1997, the maker of the decoys remains unknown.
By 1999, two years later we have the real beginning of the Seabury fabrication with the Guyette & Schmidt April 22 & 23 “NORTH AMERICAN DECOYS AT AUCTION,” lot 103, “Very Early Golden Plover, Circa Mid to Late 1800s from the Seabury Family (Bridgehampton New York).” Lot 350- Lot 354 gives the same description as for the bird above. However, we have a caveat with Lot 360. This bird is obviously by the same maker as the previous decoys, yet here the description reads, “EXTREMELY EARLY AND LARGE PLOVER believed to be from the Seabury family (Bridgehampton N.Y.) This bird may date back to the mid 1800s.” Lot 802 reads "EXCELLENT AND EARLY GOLDEN PLOVER CIRCA 1890 BELIEVED TO BE FROM THE Seabury family, (Bridgehampton N.Y.)."
Why are there discrepancies in the origins of the decoys; “From The Seabury family," “believed to be from the Seabury family,” and where did this information on a purported Seabury family connection come from? Why are they no longer referred to as being by an unknown maker and changed to “Seabury” without any proof? It is the willing acceptance by auction houses and collectors, etc. for undocumented names for unknown carvings that makes establishing a new identity for decoy makers so easy for charlatan researchers and the lemming-like collectors. Apparently no questions were asked about the evidence for the supposed discovery of the carver of the here-to-fore unknown carvings.
It was around this time that Bridgehampton collector Timmy Sieger began to spread the gospel of the “Seabury Plovers.” According to Tim, he began collecting decoys in high school. He liked Hurley Conklin’s work and I remember him telling how his mother would drive him to New Jersey so he could visit with and buy birds from Mr. Conklin. For a period, he also collected Wildfowler Company decoys. As he became more affluent, he began to buy more up-market birds. He shifted from the Conklin and Wildfowler’s to Illinois River birds, and Long Island decoys by well known “names.” He sold off much of his early collection as he entered the world of the high-end decoy collector. He attended many of shows and decoy auctions. He set up at some shows as a dealer and traded birds room to room, etc. In 1997, as president, I appointed him Show Chairman for the annual Long Island Decoy Collectors Show. At the time he was not considered as a particularly knowledgeable collector by many of the older collectors, dealers and auction houses, but as he bought increasing more expensive birds, his knowledge exponentially increased. One’s expertise on decoys is evaluated among high-end decoy collectors, as well as collectors at the lower end of spectrum, by how much money you spend on decoys at auction or private sales. Tim had been beating the Seabury decoy drum for a couple of years telling those who would listen that the plover decoys had been carved by a member of the Seabury family. Later Tim would identify exactly which of the Seabury’s was the carver of the birds. Tim would present his “research” in the September/October 2001 issue of Hunting & Fishing Collectibles magazine on page 62 in a feature titled “Decoys-My Favorite Five” by Timothy R. Sieger. Once again we find this magazine printing unsubstantiated, non-researched imbecilic drivel as fact. Tim’s Favorite Five: (1) a pair of “Gelston” Mergansers (read the Gelston Myth); (2) “Raynor family geese” (another example of Timmy’s detective work that I will address in the near future); (3) “Bert Graves Canvasbacks”; (4) “Seabury Golden Plover”; (5) “Thomas Gelston Yellowlegs.”
I don’t know about the Graves Birds but of the other four picks he identified, he is 0 for 4.
In the article Tim says number (4), the Golden Plover in the photograph was made by “Captain Lafayette Seabury of Bridgehampton, Long Island, N.Y.” Lafayette Seabury was born around 1825 according to the 1850 Federal Census. He is listed as a “Farmer” in 1880 and he lists himself on that census as a “carpenter.” Unless Timmy sees the plow or tool chest as a nautical covance, I don’t see the title of “Captain” being used or applied during his lifetime. However, “Captain” is more colorful than farmer or carpenter, and I am sure Tim never thought anyone would research his little Seabury tale because he like most decoy collectors /writers, etc. never ever research anything.
As far as his home in Bridgehampton, Seabury also spent much of his time in Southampton. In 1850, he and his mother Julia and his wife Priscilla lived with the Smith Topping Family in Southampton. Around 1854, he has his first son Orlando. The 1860 Census shows his mother and 6 year old son, but his wife is absent. In 1870, the Seabury family moves with the Topping Family to Bridgehampton. His mother, age 78, and his son, age 14, once again are listed. I believe it is a safe assumption his wife either died or had left the family.
In 1880, he is head of the house, no longer living with the Topping family. He has a new young wife, Emma, and a new son, Egbert, 9 months old. His son Orlando, age 25, is listed as a border and his occupation as a mill worker. The Old Mill in Bridgehampton known as the “Beebe windmill” was first erected in Sag Harbor by Whaling Captain Beebe. Lafayette Seabury was one of the many owners of the old mill and that is most likely why his son was a "mill worker” (see Hamptons.com, Around Town Bridgehampton, May 11 2008).
In the book “Memorials of old Bridgehampton" by James T. Adams, he gives the death date for Mr. Seabury as “August 19th 1910."
But what we don’t find is why Tim feels he has any proof that the plovers were made by Lafayette Seabury as he claims in the 2001 Hunting & Fishing Collectibles feature. Tim offers the following infantile explanation of his research on the subject of the “Lafayette Seabury Plovers:”
“This Shorebird is a Golden Plover carved by Captain Lafayette Seabury of Bridgehampton, N.Y., circa 1850 (Note: Tim even knows when they were made with no documentation included). My first encounter with these Seabury shorebirds was in 1978 while removing a chicken coop from the property of my mother-in-law who is a great grand-daughter of Lafayette Seabury.” He goes on to say “Tucked away on the plate of the building, the decoy had fallen into the soffit area. It was 2” thick flattie, with no head.” However he happened to acquire the headless bird, he took it to local carver Don Law to have the head replaced. Don not having seen a bird from this rig with an original head, had no way of knowing what the original looked like. So even though he did a good replacement job, it did not match other birds from the rig, as Tim found out after he bought another bird from the rig. At this point Tim ask me to replace Don’s replacement head with a more acceptable head, based on his later acquisition of the rigmate. I took the two birds from Tim, but as I had too many irons in the fire, I gave them back without fixing the bird's head. I believe he has since sold it.
Tim goes on to tell us of his research. "Upon further questioning, I found out whom they were carved by." There you go; that is the research, beginning to end. “Upon further questioning,” he found out who the maker was?
One can only speculate whom or what he questioned to get this valuable information. Would he have questioned the chicken coop (if that story is even true). Did he question the decoy, or perhaps the spirits of the Ouija board helped out, or maybe a Crystal Ball, or better yet, The Magic Eight Ball, or did he just pull it out of where the Sun don’t shine. I am betting on the last one.
Tim goes on to say he had acquired more of the birds from this rig and that he knew where more were held by other people that he hoped to add to his collection.
That is it, Timmy’s research, you have it all, there is no more. There is no research. There has never been any research by Tim or anyone else for these decoys except for what I have presented in this blog. And I have found no documentation that Lafayette Seabury carved the decoys Tim Sieger claimed he carved all based on his “questioning.”
But the acceptance of this fabrication of the “Seabury” plovers by the auction houses, collectors, etc. derives from their not “questioning” the source of the story and asking for some evidence for Tim’s claim. They had a new name from a high-end buyer, and that’s good enough for most in the decoy collecting world.
Tim’s contribution in Hunting and Fishing Collectibles magazine is just one of the many fact-checking-free, unintelligent articles to be found in many of the issues of the magazine. Publisher/Editor Stanley Van Etten apparently did not question Tim’s “questioning,” whatever he questioned in place of research and documentation to identify the maker of the decoys. He just printed what Timmy said as if it were fact. This makes Timmy the anointed discoverer of the “Seabury decoys.” He will be enshrined in the hallowed halls of decoy buffoonery along with many others who came up with names for unknown decoys.
In the next step in the Seabury tale, Tim is aided in his establishment of his claim for Seabury by The Ward Museum at the “Chesapeake Wildfowl Expo” held on October 4, 2003. In the “Antique Decoy Competition” a “Lafayette Seabury Golden Plover” takes a second place in the “Long Island Decoy” category and who was the owner of the decoy? None other than Tim Sieger. How about that, what are the odds?
Tim begins to acquire more of the plovers, as did other L.I.D.C.A. members. Tim, along with collectors Bob Liehr and Frank Murphy (Frank Murphy finally found the carver of his unknown decoys thanks to Timmy‘s questioning). The three began to exhibit their decoys as “Lafayette Seabury decoys” at different venues like The Historic Mill in Watermill, Long Island where Bob Liehr was on the board, the L.I.D.C.A. show, etc.
At the L.I.D.C.A.’s meeting in May 2006, the guest speaker featured was Long Island Historian Geoffrey K. Fleming, director of the Southold Historical Society Museum, Southold Long Island.
Mr. Fleming’s talk was on Lafayette Seabury and his brother Ichabod. Not having been at the meeting, I can only go by what is in the L.I.D.C.A.’s newsletter. Typical of most Long Island Decoy Collectors newsletters, it is a substandard publication with very little references to what was said at the meeting by Mr. Fleming in his talk. My only other source for what transpired is Club Member Stephen Mikle who was at the meeting. Photos of the meeting can be found on the L.I.D.C.A. website. In the photos listed as “May Meeting Lafayette Seabury Decoys” we find five members exhibiting decoys that Tim Sieger says are L.S.D., “Lafayette Seabury Decoys”; Dick LaFountain, Bob Liehr, Frank Murphy, Melvin Phaff and Tim Sieger, and also a photo of Mr. Fleming in a gray sweater.
The newsletter says Mr. Fleming talked about the Seabury brothers’ occupations repairing the windmill’s sails, The Life Saving Service, fishing nets and cabbages and kings. Yet the only mention of decoys is found in the sentence following this one which is very pertinent, “The brothers made every tool they owned and marked each tool (branded each tool) my emphasis, “with either IS Seabury or LWS Seabury.” Then it says, “They made a rig of decoys together for their personal use and did not mark these decoys in any way.” According to Steve Mikle, Mr. Fleming provided no proof the brothers made any decoys and he certainly did not provide any proof they had made the plover decoys Timmy said they made, and Timmy did not provide any corroborating research at the meeting. What was so pertinent about the brands is that when he finished his talk and ask for questions from those in attendance, only two hands rose; one was Frank Murphy and the other, Steve Mikle. Mr. Fleming took Frank's question which was why all their tools, including their pencils, were branded yet not the decoys. It would appear Mr. Fleming had a moment of "Deer in the Headlights” stare then pulling himself together, he blurted out “The decoys were for using.” That would seem to be an incredibly stupid response to the question. The tools were not for using? What were they, show tools? The response was in reaction to a question that Fleming was not prepared for. If he had researched the decoys, it should have been an obvious question he should have ask himself. He obviously just took the word of L.I.D.C.A. members that the plover decoys were made by Lafayette Seabury. After his absurd answer to Frank Murphy’s question, he next turned to Steve Mikle for his question. Steve said his question was the same question that Frank Murphy had asked.
The obvious conclusion is Tim Sieger is responsible for the Lafayette Seabury fabrication. He has been aided by others like Guyette & Schmidt,The Ward Museum, Stan Van Etten, many L.I.D.C.A members, Geoffrey Fleming of the Southold Historical Society Museum. But all roads lead back to Tim’s headless plover and Tim’s “questioning” in place of documented research.
As with Dick Cowan and the “Gelston Myth,” I e-mailed Mr. Geoffrey Fleming at the Southold Historical Society on August 12, 2009, prior to the posting the “Seabury Fabrication.” In the e-mail I told Mr. Fleming that I had been researching the “Lafayette Seabury decoys." I queried why The Southold Museum had the Seabury hand tools, etc., and how the plovers were identified as the work of Lafayette Seabury. I told him that I did not think any of the decoys had come from his estate. I told him that before I posted my next blog that "I would be very interested in what evidence you have for Mr. Seabury as a carver of decoys.”
Mr. Fleming’s response: “Mr. Reason, The Society does not own any of the material on Seabury. All the materials continue to be owned by the Seabury family which is the material I based my talk on. The decoys in question came through his family and were sold by family members long after his death. G. Fleming.”
My response to this was to thank him for his response, but that I didn’t believe the plover decoys being called Seabury’s” had been documented as coming from the Seabury family.” “That I had found no documentation for Seabury as the carver” of these decoys found in “the East Hampton area” And "were you able to document L. Seabury as a carver.” His response: “I met with the Seabury Family. They knew their ancestor, knew he carved and made a rig, and knew it was eventually sold and divided up. The decoys were, as I recall, sold by one of the descendants in the 1960’s/70’s and divided up piecemeal amongst a variety of dealers-collectors. Again as I recall, the largest grouping of the decoys were not found in East Hampton, but in the Watermill-Bridgehampton area.”
We have seen that retired teachers like Richard Baldwin and Dick Cowan don’t understand the meaning of “research,"“documentation,” or “evidence” and it would appear some historians don’t understand the meaning of these words either. The only question Mr. Fleming answered was that the Southold Historical Society held none of the “Seabury material.” He said he talked to Seabury family members? Who were they? L. Seabury died in 1910. Who could Fleming have talked to who would have known him? Once again, Mr. Fleming presents no documentation or evidence for what he says and what he says are vagueries, no specifics. Nothing he says is backed up with any evidence. Mr. Fleming may have history degrees, but he is no historian. He is a tool in the fabrication of the Seabury fable. I have found many of the Historical Societies on Long Island do more harm to history than benefit history. Fleming and the Southold Society are just a small part of a big problem. I was not satisfied with his response for my request for documentation. I wanted a simple yes or no; had he every seen any documentation for his inference to Seabury made decoys and that he made the decoys Timmy Sieger said were carved by Seabury that Fleming was blindly going along with. So I e-mailed him a third time trying to get a yes or no to the documentation question. I received no response. I e-mailed him again pressing him for a yes or no on documentation and once again Mr. Fleming has not responded. This always seem to happen any time you press for documentation. They first respond with smoke and mirrors, no documentation and hope I go away, somehow satisfied with not having my questions answered. Mr. Fleming has no documentation for Seabury. You can’t have documentation for a fabrication. It is shame that he cares nothing for what should be his passion, namely Long Island’s History.
There is only one conclusion that can be reached. No one knows who made the plover decoys, but it is a certainty it was not Lafayette Seabury. Now if Tim Sieger, Geoffrey Fleming, the Seabury family, or anyone else has any “DOCUMENTATION” for Seabury as a carver of decoys, please feel free to contact me and present your research, which I will gladly post on my blog. But you may want to look up the word documentation, just so you know what it really means, since obviously so many do not.
In the next blog we will evaluate the “Name” “John Dilley” and whether there is any reason to attribute a group of shorebird decoys to the “Name,” which of course, there isn’t.
