Dick Cowan's response regarding my request for documentation for Gelston as a carver (July 29, 2009 e-mail from Mr. Cowan):
"I have some new information on Gelston which I plan to put in our next article. We have found who he stayed with in Quogue and where he hunted. I have not added to the information that was published by Stony Brook in 1977 about his family history. I purchased a group of decoys in the late 1980's from an old man who claimed to have purchased 48 black duck decoys from Gelston about 1918. Perhaps they were bought at Abercrombie and Fitch, but my notes indicate that he bought them directly from Gelston. This Gentleman gunned a great deal on Long Island, frequently with George Pennel as a guide. The Gentleman, a banker from Newburg. N.Y. also bought all the Gelstons remaining at the Abercrombie and Fitch store in NYC right after Gelston died in 1924 (I think)."
Well there you have have it. Dick Cowan has no documentation for Gelston as a carver. I am perplexed that decoy writers don't understand what the word "documentation" means(?) It does not mean "an old man who claimed" he bought decoys from Gelston. If Dick discovered "where Gelston stayed in Quogue" it would not document him as a carver of decoys, and I can only wonder what his evidence for this will be. Nothing in Dick's e-mail is documentation for Thomas H.Gelston (decoy carver) but at least he did respond.
