H&FC Magazine's Fiction Writer

Hunting & Fishing Collectibles Magazine's Second Best Fiction Writer, Francis D. Murphy



     Over the years, Frank Murphy has written  so called "articles" for Decoy Magazine and now for H&FC Magazine.  His articles are absolutely worthless to the novice or serious decoy collector.
The only facts that can be found in his writings are facts that have no bearing on the decoys in his stories.


It is quite evident that Stanley Van Etten's magazine has no standards and does no fact checking, which is why Frank Murphy is a perfect fit for H&F Collectibles Magazine.  Frank has been a decoy collector for years and is a charter member of L.I.D.C.A., and he is another self-proclaimed decoy expert who has never done any firsthand research on Long Island decoys.  He was always a low-end collector and a protégé for Bob Gerard and George Combs Jr.


When I joined the L.I.D.C.A., most of the early members had left the club.  Frank Murphy, Bob Gerard, Bud Ward and others no longer came to meetings.  The Combs, George Sr., "Pop" Sr. and George Jr. had moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore.  But many of those old members did come to the June Homecoming meeting dinner, which the club no longer does.


The club had blown it's self apart in the late 1980's and early1990's.  The two main antagonist were Bud Ward vs. Bob Gerard who were at odds over many issues.  The annual decoy show was held at the Ward Melville High School and they were great shows.  I think the last show held there was somewhere between 1990-1992.  The rumor was that Bob Gerard had convinced the high school not to rent the space to the club anymore. 


A club member suggested we do the annual show in East Hampton L.I. in partnership with the Rotary Club, of which he was also a member.  We held two shows in East Hampton that were disastrous, and we had a dwindling bank account and membership.  It did not look good for the future of the club.  We were also mailing out newsletters to over 100 people, but we only had around 35 paying members.  We had around $1,200.00 in the bank.


I was asked to run for the president position. I agreed that if I won, I would hold the position for only one year, but in that year, I would try to breath some life back into the association.  I ended up staying in that position for three years, and when I stepped down, the club had over $13,000.00 in the bank because of 3 straight years of profitable well-attended shows.  We also had signed up many new (paying) members during that time.


The success of the club during my tenure as president brought back some of the old members who had left. That is when Bob Gerard and Frank Murphy came back.  All the fresh new members were like blood in the water to the sharks, especially Bob Gerard.  All these new members, many neophytes, represented fresh, gullible collectors to pawn off unwanted, fake or worthless decoys on to.  Some of the older members who had never left the club wanted me to prevent Gerard and Murphy from returning to the club. I said that I would not attempt to ban anyone, not even Gerard and Murphy.


Frank Murphy and Bob Gerard were always the proverbial turds in the punch bowl.  At meetings they objected to any new ideas members might have to try to improve the club.  After Gerard died, Frank assumed the position as head curmudgeon.  The only ideas that Frank usually came up with were ridiculous.  Like deputizing club members as a security force for the annual decoy show who would watch for thieves stealing decoys and people slipping in for free.  The attendance for the shows had fallen off and Frank thought that the drop in the gate was due to people slipping in.  His security force would put an end to the huge number people slipping in for free, which of course was just as fictional as his writings.  The only good idea Frank ever had was to raise the entry fee to the annual decoy show.


However any time Frank Murphy decides to write what he calls an "article", well that's never a good idea.  For example, his two so-called articles on Long Island shorebird decoys (Part One& Part Two) found in Hunting&Fishing Collectibles Magazine, July /August 2015 issue, "Long Island Shorebird Decoys Early Long Island Decoys" and July/August 2016 issue "Long Island Shorebird Decoys The Golden Age."

                                                                Part One


On page 46, it begins with a fictional story which is totally devoid of any facts pertaining to the decoys pictured in his fable, and nothing on early L.I. shorebird decoys.  The facts that are presented in Frank's fable have nothing to do with the decoys in the accompanying photos in Frank's story, and once again, have on bearing on early L.I. decoys.  Frank also writes with the simplicity and imagination of an 8th grade English student who envisions his future to be a great America writer.  His writings are painful to get through; chalk on the blackboard screech painful.  Some of Frank writings are reminiscent of a Joel Barber scenario from his book Wildfowl Decoys.  Frank Murphy's so-called "article" is pure fiction!


And once again, we find editor Stanley Van Etten does not understand that there is a difference between fiction and fact.


Fictional: Imaginary, made-up, unfitted, fabricated, myth.


Fact: Anything true, Anything actually existent.  Any statement strictly true.


I would advise, no make that urge, Editor/ Publisher Van Etten to have theses two definitions placed on a large sign and install it in his office where it will be readily accessible to his view at all times.


Frank Murphy begins his story with a fictional, nameless old man who has no bearing on the decoy photographs used in his story.  "The old man was just leaving the haberdashery shop.  He was sporting a brand new hat and why not? For tomorrow was Easter Sunday."  There are nearly two pages of fiction on "the old man".


Frank then tries his hand at anthropology when he writes of Long Islands (mythical) 13 Indian Sub- tribes.  At one time all Long Island school children learned that there were 13 original Indian tribes on Long Island when the Europeans arrived.  This Eurocentric absurdity has not been taught in public or private schools, or accepted by historians, anthropologists, colleges and universities for over 30 years.  Today it is accepted that two Algonquian speaking nations lived on Long Island when the Dutch began their invasion of what would become New York.  Some of what is today western Long Island, including Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau County where part of the larger territory of the Lenape Nation (also known as the Delaware Indians).  The Eastern End of Long Island (Suffolk County) was the territory of what today is referred to as the Montauk or Montaukett Confederacy, which is wrong as Montauk was actually a place name or village site, not a tribal name.


It is interesting that Frank claims Indians on Long Island used decoys very sparingly. What would this be based on?  Indians all across the North America used decoys to attract all types of game.  Frank also credits "the white man"with creating the decoys we know today. Really?  I think Charles Bunn made decoys like we know today.


Frank, like most Americans, has no idea what great art was produced by the indigenous people of the Americas for thousands of years prior to metal tools, prior to the arrival of as Frank writes, "the white man", and Europe's iron and steal tools.  Frank most likely gets all his Indian information from old Bonanza episodes.


Frank goes on to describe roothead decoys.  He doesn't know that the majority are not rootheads.  Most are limb heads.  But then, Frank is fiction writer.


Frank also describes a snipe shooting Currier & Ives print without any shorebird decoys in the print.  He tells of the artist who did the painting for the print, and her alcoholic husband who died when he fell down his stairs.  Nothing about early L.I. shorebirds.


Frank also writes of Henry Hudson seeing shorebirds on his way up the Hudson, which adds absolutely nothing to the knowledge of who made the decoys in the photos in Frank's little story.  And once again, nothing about "early Long Island shorebird decoys".


On page 47, he has 3 decoys he lists as by John Henry Verity (1788-1866).  There has never been any proof for this attribution and Frank presents no proof for his claim for J.H.Verity as the maker.  Frank also shows two shorebird decoys; he attributes one to George Verity and the other to Theodore Rogers rig, and once again, there has never been any documentation for both attributions, and again, Frank presents on documentation for the two attributions.


On page 49, there are three East End plover decoys.  No one knows who the maker of these decoys was, however, Frank refers to them as the work of Lafayette Seabury (see Long Island Decoy Forum: The Seabury Fabrication).  The synopsis of the Seabury fabrication was that it was perpetrated by Timmy Sieger, the present president of L.I.D.C.A (see the September/October 2001 issue of H&FC Magazine in the section called "My Favorite 5").


But where else would you go for decoy fiction than H&F Collectibles Magazine?  This is where Tim establishes Seabury as the maker of the plovers, without presenting any evidence at all for his claim, and he hasn't any.


Frank has photos of other shorebirds listed George Verity and Theodore Rogers, once again, presenting no evidence for the claim for the maker as none has been offered in the past.


To finish up, Frank continues his fictitious story of the nameless old man going to bed (as visions of shore birds danced in his head). This is so embarrassingly sophomoric, that you would assume  it was written by a child.  When I have ask non decoy collectors to read this short story, none can believe that anyone would print Frank's fable. Many wondered why the editor hadn't rejected it.


In the future, when Stanley publishes fiction it should be labeled as such, and not referred to as an article.  I do realize it would be harder to fill his pages, and it calls into question everything printed in his magazine.


I do have an idea for an article For H&F Collectibles Magazine.  Stanley shpuld ask Ronnie McGrath to write the story he told me about years ago.  Ron had said Bill Mackey sold him some roothead shorebirds. Ronnie later found out that they were fakes. He was hopping mad and called Mackey threatening to expose him. Mackey claimed they were real. Then Mackey sent early collector/dealer King Hemming to try to get back the rootheads.  After lots of negotiating, in the end Mackey, through King Hemming,  had to give Ronnie a bunch of decoys to get back his fake rootheads.  Now that would be a good story for Ronnie to write.  That would be something Ronnie actually knows about.


Next will be my review of Part II of Frank Murphy's second "article" on L.I. shorebird decoys, "The Golden Age".

Charles Bunn and the Gilded Age

In the articles in Decoy Magazine on Charles Sumner Bunn and his work, Joe Jannsen and I have referenced the Martinez transcripts.

The Martinez transcripts were compiled from tape recordings made in the 1980's and 1990's by David Martine, Charles Bunn's great-grandson. These tapes were made in order to capture the memories of Charles Bunn's daughter, Mrs.Alice Martinez (1901-1992), Mrs. Martinez' son, David W. Martinez (1922-1987), and her daughter and David's mother Marjorie C. Martinez (1928-1998).  Much of the transcripts were were used in David Martine's book on his family titled, Time And Memories Histories And Stories of A Shinnecock-Apache-Hungarian Family printed in 2013.  Some of transcripts may not be accurate in all instances as memories are not always accurate, especially in your late 80's and early 90's.  For instance, when Mrs.Martinez said she thought he used chestnut wood for his decoys, Bunn actually used native white cedar.  But much of it is very accurate and is backed up with independent corroborating evidence, sometimes from multiple sources.  I was given the transcript by David Martine at the beginning of my research into Bunn's life.  They have been instrumental in our research.


The photo of Bunn at the 1906 Sportsmen's Show at Madison Square Garden was not known of until 1993 when Charles Bunn's last surviving daughter, Helen Bunn Smith, passed away.  The photo came into the possession of David Martine.  But it wasn't until 1997 when John A. Strong published his book, The Algonquian Peoples of Long Island From Earliest Times to 1700.  In the book John wrongly date the photo c.1920 and it would not be until 2002 when I discovered the book that the decoy collecting world learned of the photo and Charles Bunn.


The only reference to Bunn as carver prior to my research was Bob Gerard's Decoy Magazine May/ June 1997 "article", which was the reprinted chapter in Gaynell Stone's book on the Shinnecock people.  However, Gerard did not, or could not, tie the Bunn stool to those that were being called Bowman's because the photo that would do so was not discovered until 2002.


The description of Charles Bunn's s booth at the old Madison Square Garden Sportsmen's Show undoubtedly came from family oral history and the now well known 1906 photo.  In the transcripts she mentions her father having a "concession stand" at the annual Sportsmen's Show where he "sold all he brought (decoys) and took many orders."


In Bunn's last interview in April of 1952, he relates that he had been too sick to work but that "the sports are still after me and I could sell all I could make."  The article also tells of his being famous for his decoys and that he had attended the Sportsmen's Show annually for many years.


In the transcripts are many references to Bunn as a professional hunting guide.  We also learn the names of some of his clients and that he also gave hunting lessons to the sons of the wealthy "summer colonists".  Bunn also taught them and their children to sail.  The transcripts have been instrumental in connecting Bunn to other documented sources, as in the cases of the Munn, Edgar and Ives families. 


In the transcripts, Mrs.Martinez spoke of Charles Bunn's grandfather, James Bunn (1810-1895), when she said, "My father learned all his hunting skills from his grandfather James Bunn."  Among those hunting skills Charles Bunn learned would have been the making and use of bird decoys.  For most of James Bunn's life, he would have hunted for his family and most likely for the market. It would only be in the last fifteen years of his life that new era of economic opportunities came to Southampton. Southampton had been a rustic backwater made up of baymen, farmers, whalers and shopkeepers. This all changed when the Long Island Railroad came to town.


As a boy, Charles Bunn would have been a witness to the laying of the tracks and the building of the first Southampton Railroad Station in 1871.  The Southampton Station would be instrumental in Charles Bunn creating the very successful career that he enjoyed thoughtout his lifetime as a decoy maker, guide, farmer, and by giving hunting and sailing lessons.  Charles Bunn was born at just the right time to ride the wave of the Gilded Age and develop into the greatest shorebird decoy carver in America.


Prior to the railroad coming to Southampton, Southampton would have been a long tiring ride by stagecoach or wagon.  Boats were the only other option with its inherent hazards.  The railroad brought quick access to Long Island's South Fork.  Now the wealthy created what Mark Twain christened the "Gilded Age".  The wealthy who came to Southampton were a combination of "old money" and "new money" just as it is today.  


In 1877, the first "summer colonists",  Dr, T. Gallard Thomas, a renowned surgeon, began building his "summer cottage" named "The Dunes"on what is now prestigious Gin Lane.  Orson Munn Jr's. home, "The Arches", was also built on Gin Lane by his father around 1928.  In 1877, when the first summer home was built, Charles Bunn would have been 14 years of age and in school. However, he would have alredy spent much of his life learning and working with his grandfather.  He would have been learning from a very early age the skills that he would need to survive on the Shinnecock Reservation, as rural children did then and still do today.


The new summer colonists brought a windfall of cash to Southampton and to the Shinnecock Reservation. Many of the local Southampton people lived a subsistence lifestyle.  They followed seasonal opportunities; fin-fishing, shell-fishing, farming, market gunning, whaling and mercantile interests.  The new summer colonists needed servants, laborers, gardeners, hunting guides, sailing instructors and grocers. By 1890, The Shinnecock Hills Golf Club offered employment to many of the men living on the reservation.  Charles Bunn's brother, Oscar Bunn, became a well-known golf pro there.


All these new sources of income on Long Island's East End were especially welcome in the face of a rapidly declining whaling industry.  Many of Long Island's East Enders, including many from Shinnecock Reservation, sailed around the world on whaling ships, or found work supplying and servicing the whaling industry, which by 1870 was in steep decline. Whales were becoming scarce after their unrestrained slaughter, and whale oil lamps were being replaced by the emerging petroleum industry's kerosene lamps and gas light. Additionally, electricity in urban areas began to light America's dark nights.


Charles Bunn's grandfather James most likely made decoys.  Being where he lived and his economic situation, it is doubtful that he would have bought decoys.  He may have also used call ducks and geese as his grandson Charles Bunn did, but for snipe shooting, he would have used wooden and or cork stool.


Charles Bunns father, David Bunn (1829-1876), was a whaler and was said by Mrs. Martinez to have carved whale ivory. Whether or not he made gunning stool is unknown.  As a whaler he was away from the reservation much of time, which is the reason Charles Bunn would have learned his hunting skills from his grandfather, and not his father who died when Charles Bunn was around 11 years old.


Most likely a carving tradition existed at the Shinnecock Reservation, spanning at least from the 19th and 20th centuries, and at least in the Bunn family.  There may have also been other undocumented carvers present on the reservation.  The Bunn family's artistic endeavors didn't end with Charles Bunn.  His grandson, David Waukus Martinez (1922-1987), was a talented carver of decorative birds and wood sculptures.  He never carved working decoys and he didn't hunt.


David Martine received an Art Degree from the University Oklahoma.  He is best known for his large murals depicting Long Island's native peoples in their daily lives.  At this time, he is the director/curator of the Shinnecock Museum and Cultural Center, a position he has held for many years.

What are the Charles Bunn Cork Decoys

We have both oral and documented history for Charles Bunn as a maker of cork stool, yet there have not been to my knowledge any cork stool that in the past were identified as by William (Bill) Bowman, or to my knowledge there have never been any cork birds offered for sale or exhibited as by Bowman.

In an interview with the late Orson Munn Jr., he told me when he wanted his own duck stool in the 1940's, so his father told him, "Go see Charley Bunn." Orson did just that and he said he "bought Charles Bunn's broadbill and black duck cork stool."   None of the stool that he had bought from Bunn were still in his possession when I met him.  In fact, I sold his last working rig and other old stool he had when he quit gunning in the 1990's.

In the 1952 News Review article on Bunn, it mentions that, "Charles Bunn makes decoys or 'stool' that Long Islanders call the wood and cork replicas of game birds which they attempt to entice the wild variety into gun range."  I know of no cork stool that resemble the classic 1906 floating stool formerly called  William (Bill) Bowman decoys.

So what would Bunn's cork stool look like?

The Decoys Unlimited's Bill Bowman Fable

 
Decoys Unlimited: The Mr. Pinkum/Mrs. Atchelis Story Can't Be True!


 Ted Harmon's Decoys Unlimited has been around for a very long time.And the auction house has been a source of humor for decoy collectors and dealers for just as long. Ted has no idea who made most of the decoys that he sells, and as far as I know, Ted has not done any research on any decoys or their makers, yet he is considered to be a decoy expert.  What Ted really is, is a decoy salesman.
   
 In the decoy collecting world anybody can be a decoy expert . Prior to beginning my research on Charles Bunn in 2002, I was the very same type of "decoy expert", although I never referred to my self as a decoy expert, I just said I was knowledgeable.

All you have to do to be a decoy expert is read all the books on American decoys, retain what you have read, and then just repeat it as sagely wisdom.  Most if not all of the books that feature Long Island decoys are filled with un-researched and dead wrong information.  Theses out of date references are used by Decoys Unlimited to write their catalog descriptions, but occasionally Ted really gets creative all on his own.  I think my all time favorite misattribution by Decoys Unlimited is found below:
 
Decoys Unlimited auction July, 20th 1997  Lot 214 a stick up goose:

 "RARE and IMPORTANT life sized stick-up Canada goose decoy attributed to the Holly family with a few tight checks and small repairs, OP with in use touch- up. From the Admiral "Bull" F.Halsey rig and branded W.F.Halsey (see close up of Halsey brand in the companion photo)
Few, if any stickups by this early and important family of decoy makers exist.     2500 /4500"

The operative word in the above description is "Bull".  The goose decoy actually came from the rig of William F. Halsey (1878-1961) born in Southampton, L.I.  He was a member of the Life Saving Service. In fact, he and Frank D.Warner were both awarded the Gold Life Saving Medal for a harrowing winter rescue on January 22, 1904.  He spent the first part of his service at the Southampton station.  He then transferred to the Quogue station.  His last posting was the Fire Island station until his retirement.  He was also a hunting guide with a huge rig consisting of decoys many different makers.  The goose was part of his rig.

Ted's estimate for the "Rare and  Important" goose decoy was $2500.00 - $4500.00.  It actually sold for $650.00, just a bit lower than Ted's estimate.
                               
                     Ted Harmon's Mr.Pinkum & Mrs.Atchelis Story Debunked

Ted Harmon's mentor is Gary Guyette of Guyette & Deeter Auctions, and it is well-known in the decoy collecting world that Gary Guyette has put out an imperial decree; No one is to utter the name of Charles Bunn in relationship to the decoys that he made!  Gary Guyette wants all the auction houses,dealers and collectors to go along with G&D lock-stepping down the wrong side of history.

So when Jon Frank of Frank & Frank auctions, and formerly of Sotheby's, recently offered two shorebird decoys cataloged as made by Charles Sumner Bunn, Gary got his knickers all in a twist. He was outraged that an auction house would not help him in the perpetual perpetuation of the Bowman fabrication.

From the very beginning Gary Guyette was staunchly against the idea of reattributing the decoys to Charles Bunn, and it has been repeatedly proven that no matter how much researched evidence that we present for Bunn. Gary covers his eyes and goes, "La, la, la, la, la."  Gary has also taught his newest protégé, Jon Deeter, to do the same.

But Gary knows he can count on auctioneer Ted Harmon to back him up as they both continues to sell William Bowman decoys.  However, Ted was not fully onboard with Gary from the very beginning. He was slightly open-minded about my early research for Bunn, at least for the floating stool, if not the shorebird decoys.

On March 10, 2004, Ted wrote a very short e-mail to Joe Engers, which was later printed in Decoy Magazine's "Letters to the Editor".  Ted opens up with, "Great Article on Bowman (Charles Bunn)"
(for the full text see Decoy Magazine, March /April 2004, page 29).

However, a few years later we find another short e-mail from Ted to Hal Herrick, which first appeared in Ronnie McGrath's rebuttal in H&F C Magazine, May/June 2006 page 9.  In the e-mail, Ted claims that he owns a Bowman shorebird with a direct connection to William Bowman from Lawrence, L.I..  Interestingly, Ted had never mention what he calls "My Bowman shorebirds" in his 2004 e-mail to Decoy Magazine.  In this e-mail, Ted presents no evidence for Bowman because there is no evidence for Bowman.  

 Most of what Ronnie presents in all of his rebuttals in H&FC is pure gibberish.  As an example, of Ronnie's fanciful missing or misplaced (non-existent ) "Bowman photo" that he claims Ronnie Bauer once owned (a $10,000 reward has been offered by Joe Engers of Decoy Magazine for evidence of the mythical photo). Like the "missing photo", the e-mail from Ted Harmon to Hal Herrick is typical of the fabricated evidence that the Bowman disciples try to pass off as facts.


                                             H&FC Magazine May /June 2006

Ted Harmon: "My Bowman (shorebird decoy) came from a Mrs. Atchelis who had a home on Martha's Vineyard. She got it from a Mr.Pinkum from Lawrence, Long Island.  Mr Pinkum told her he bought it from a clam digger/bayman named Bill Bowman from Lawrence, Long Island.  She brought the decoy to Stanley Murphy who wrote The Vineyard (decoy) book.  He referred her to me 25 to 30 years ago".                  
                               

                                    A Clinical  Review of Ted Harmon's Bowman Story

 The first reason that I can say unequivocally that the Ted Harmon story of "My Bowman (shorebird decoy)" is a fabrication is because the research produced by Joe Jannsen and myself has proven that Charles Bunn is the real maker of the decoys and there is no evidence for Bowman as a decoy maker period. Case closed.

However, I also know the diehard Bill Bowman supporters reject our research out of hand, especially it seems my latest article in Decoy Magazine proving that the shorebird decoys formerly attributed to Bowman could not have been produced prior to 1910, which is exactly what it does.

The opposition to Bunn continually present wild irrational speculations as to why Bunn could not be the maker of the decoys.  They try to explain away why a group of Bunn shorebird decoys look exactly like the work of two famous artists, Fuertes and Brasher.  Ronnie even absurdly postulates that the two artists may have used "Bowman" shorebird decoys for models. If someone can't see the connection between the art work of Fuertes and Brasher and the Charles Bunn shorebirds, it is because they pretend not to see the connection.

By 2006, it appears Ted Harmon decided to stick his neck way out in order maintain the Bowman fabrication. Ted's little e-mail of "My Bowman shorebird decoy" story masquerading as evidence is used in Ronnie's H&FC Magazine rebuttals three separate times; May/June 2006, July /August 2007, and May/ June-2015.

Ronnie obviously comes from the school that says if you tell a lie enough times it will become the truth.  Ted and Ronnie and Stanley Van Etten present no evidence for Ted's claim to own a shorebird with a direct connection to a Bill Bowman from Lawrence, Long Island.  Ted makes nothing more than an undocumented unsubstantiated statements that can't be true.  On face value, it looks like Teddy is responsible for this little fable.  Ted's narrative seem to intentionally leaves out important information, like the first names of the two main characters in Ted's short fable, Mrs. Atchelis and a Mr. Pinkum.  This makes it much harder to document them, which even if you could document them as existing, it would still mean nothing without some documentation connecting the shorebird to a man Bowman.

My guess would be that there was a woman with the last name Atchelis who had a place on Martha's Vineyard that Ted had known or knew of, who most likely had departed this Earth by the time the story appeared in 2006.  The idea is to be as vague as possible, just like the vagueness of the original Bowman fabrication.  The more vague it is, the harder it is to research.  As for Mr. Pinkum, I have not been able to locate a person with the last name of Pinkum in Lawrence, L.I..
 
Without the first names of the two supposed informants in Ted's story, this eliminates Ted's claim of a Bowman connection for a decoy that he claims to own and had owned for years.  A decoy and story that no one had ever heard of prior to Ronnie's rebuttal.  This type of so-called evidence would never be accepted by academics.  It comes from one undocumented source, Ted Harmon.

It is also very interesting that Teddy refers to the decoy as, "My Bowman shorebird decoy".  More vagaries.  Ted didn't know the species of his "Bowman shorebird decoy".  You would expect "My Bowman Yellowlegs" or "My Bowman Dowitcher".  He presents no photo of what would be a very important decoy, if it were true.

Ted wrote that, "A Mr. Pinkum told her he got it from a clam digger/bayman named Bill Bowman from Lawrence, Long Island."  Ted must have forgotten about the Bowman myth when he wrote this e-mail.  He forgot that Bowman supposedly lived in either Bangor or Old Town, Maine, where he was employed as a sawmill worker or a cabinet maker.  How could he be clam digger and bayman from Lawrence if he lived in Maine?

The Bowman fable also has him living in a tent in the Lawrence marshes, or living in an imaginary bayman's shack, or an equally imaginary, oyster shack where he made many decoys during the summer when he wasn't market gunning and selling dead shorebird and flirting with grandma Herrick.  All the while being a drunk.  Talk about multitasking, but with fiction, all is possible.

No William or Bill Bowman is recorded as living in the Lawrence, Long Island area during the supposed timeline for Bill Bowman, carver.  When people make up these stories, like any of the Bowman fabrications, they never tie up the loose ends because it would expose their fabrications.

Ted's e-mail also refers to, "Stanley Murphy who referred her (Mrs.Atchelis) to him 20-30 years ago."  Thirty years ago would have put it at about 1976 in 2006, at leased 10 years after the Herrick's /Mackey fabrication for Bill Bowman was published in 1966-67 Decoy Collectors Guide.
20 -30 years ago, everyone called them Bill Bowman decoys.  Ted would have had to have documented evidence prior to 1966 for it to have any relevance in establishing Bowman as a carver.

Another problem with the acceptance of Ted's little tale.  The artist /author Stanley Murphy who supposedly guided Mrs. Atchelis to Ted died  in 2003, three years before Ted told his tale. Being in the state of death in 2006, Mr. Murphy couldn't deny or affirm Ted's story.  What a convenient coincidence for Ted.  However, being that you can't confirm the validity of Ted's claim for Mr. Murphy as a source, eliminates him as a source.

So in conclusion Ted's story is just that, a story, void of facts or evidence for Bowman the carver, as is everything printed about Bill Bowman, decoy carver.




 
 



 



   



      





 

Guyette & Deeter Inc. Sell Charles Bunn Decoys

                                                     

Why does Guyette & Deeter still list Charles Bunn Decoys as William Bowman Decoys?

 

Guyette & Deeter Auctions "The Leading And Most Trusted Decoy Auction Firm the World"

More like the Misleading Auction House

In the upcoming July 2016  Guyette & Deeter auction, once again, they offer Charles Bunn decoys listed as by William Bowman (they also offer a William Henry Bennett Curlew that is listed as by Chief Cuffee).  Gary has not yet learned you can't be right if you are wrong.  It's like beating a dead horse but the words that Jackson Parker wrote in 2004 still ring true today.


"It seems that Guyette & Schmidt has not caught up with the latest research on who made the Bowman decoys."  Today you can add the name Deeter to the list, and G&D also has not kept up with the research on William Henry Bennett, the real maker of the "Cuffee" decoys.
                                           
The academics will eventually decide who made the decoys, not an auction house, no matter how self important they think they are.  Auction houses have a bad track record on accuracy, and so far the academics are solidly in support of Bunn. In fact, people outside of the so-called decoy world can't believe anyone would accept the Bowman story at this date.


Another thing Gary hasn't learned, "Be carful of what you ask for."  If my early research for Bunn had been accepted from the beginning, and if G&S hadn't stated that "additional research is necessary" before they could reassign the decoys to Bunn, I may not have kept up my research, and I may not have compiled all the research that I have for the decoys made on Long Island, including the best known shorebird decoys made by Charles Bunn in the early 20th century, not in the late 19th century, Gary.


A few months after my 2004 January / February article in Decoy Magazine, "Charles Sumner Bunn The True maker Of The Bowman Decoys", Guyette & Schmidt auction house's official response to the Bunn article is found in their annual July auction catalog. It is only a cursory acknowledgement of the research compiled for the article on Charles Bunn.  At the time, this was the most important research ever presented on Long Island decoys.  Below is G&S tepid response to this new information.

"Comments on Decoys Historically Attributed to William Bowman"

        "Guyette & Schmidt wishes to acknowledge the ongoing research regarding the maker of the Bowman decoys.  Refer to Decoy magazine Jan/Feb.2004 pages 8-15. We feel additional research is needed particularly with regard to the shorebirds, before changing the attributions that have heretofore have had some historical integrity. It is important to note that additional research is necessary in order for any changes to become universally accepted within the collecting community."


In the 12 years since this statement was printed in 2004 by G&S, a great deal of the  "requested additional research" has been discovered and presented for Charles Bunn, and none for Bowman, which also has been proven to have been a fabrication.  It is extremely difficult to get the requested universal acceptance for Bunn.  Guyette &Schmidt & Deeter, along with some agenda driven dealers, collectors and museums, persist in their refusal for the acceptance of the valid research presented for Charles Bunn.  Charles Bunn was said by pioneer decoy collector Donald C. O'Brien to be, "The Greatest Shorebird Maker Who Ever Lived."


Why does G&D steadfastly support the William "Bill" Bowman fabrication?  What would cause the self proclaimed "Most Trusted Decoy Auction Firm In The World" to act in such an a unprofessional manner?  There is empirical evidence for Bunn as the maker of the decoys and no evidence for Bowman.


An Auction house is supposed to describe an item for sale accurately, to the best of their ability.  Calling these decoys William Bowman decoys is far from accurate, and it is well with in their ability to accurately describe the carvings as to have been made by Charles Sumner Bunn.  I can't believe Gary Guyette doesn't know who the real maker of theses decoys really was.


So why do we find this description in  the G&D April 2016 auction catalog, "Lot 453, Rare greater Yellowlegs alert pose by William Bowman, Lawrence, Long Island last quarter of the 19th century.  Believed by some to have been made by Charles Bunn. Relief wing carving with extended wing tips. Shoe Button eyes slight thigh carving."  Actually the eyes are German black glass, not shoe buttons, but don't let the facts get in the way.  There is also a problem with the sentence, "Believed by some to have been made by Charles Bunn"  Believed is defined as something someone accepts as true or real, i.e. Christians believe that Jesus walked on the sea and rose from the dead.  Those are beliefs, not proven substantiated facts.


It is not a belief that Charles Bunn made the decoys that Gary Guyette likes to call William Bowman decoys. It has been proven that Charles Bunn made the decoys.  That is a fact, not a belief.  And who are the people G&D say "believe" Bunn made the decoys?  They are the people who can read and comprehend what they have read.  Intelligent people who don't have an agenda. People who truly care about the real history of Long Island decoys and their makers.


See May/June 2015 article in Decoy Magazine which shows that the "alert pose" shorebird decoys made in this period by Charles Sumner Bunn were inspired by the art work of Rex Brasher found in the book Birds of America published in 1917.  So it is not a late19th century piece as described by G&D.  It really was made in the first quarter of the 20th century.  I am sure Gary Guyette and Jon Deeter received that issue of Decoy Magazine.


William (Bill) Bowman, decoy maker, is a fabrication that was perpetrated by Bill Mackey and Newbold L. Herrick on the Museums at Stony Brook, and eventually, decoy history.  Newbold Herrick received a $27,000 tax right off and Mackey got a great curlew decoy out of deal.  This Curlew later sold after his death for $10,500.  This all based on Mackey's appraisal for the Herrick donation.


See Hunting & Fishing Collectables Magazine May-June 2006 where you find the first of Ronnie McGrath's rebuttals of my research masquerading as articles. This response is to my original Decoy Magazine articles on Charles Bunn and his decoys in the November/December 2003 and  January/February 2004 issues of Decoy Magazine.  Ronnie's rebuttal points out that that the Federal Government "contested the Bill Mackeys appraisal" of $27,000 for a charitable contribution of folk art. That charitable contribution was a $27,000 tax write off for Newbold Herrick. In 2016 dollars that would be around a $200,000 write-off.  Mackey's figure of $27,000 was alot of money for old decoys at that time, however, the Mackey appraisal won out over the government's appraiser.  I think an interesting side note is that the Yellowlegs, lot 453, in the G&D April 2016 auction sold for $27,500 almost mirroring Mackey's 1966 appraisal for the 17 Bunn shorebirds donated to the Museums at Stony Brook.


The two so-called biographies selected for the April 2016 auction used by G&D for information and proof for William Bowman decoy maker is ridiculous, stilted and once again very unprofessional.  G&D also stacked the deck in favor of Bowman with two disproven and out of date research sources.


G&D  first cites, The Great Book of Decoys (1990) edited by Joe Engers, Chapter 8: Long Island Decoys by Frank Dombo.  This is an out of date book written over 12 years before my discovery of Charles Bunn.  I have wondered if this was a slap at Joe Engers for his acknowledgment that Bunn is the real maker. If you do go to the first reference sited by G&D for William Bowman, on page 98, this is what you find:


"Shorebirds are certainly the most important category of Long Island decoys.  They go from the very realistic of William Bowman's curlew, dowitcher,and golden plover."


That's it.  Only a statement that has been disproven. On page 99, is a full page photo of a Charles Bunn curlew with this description, "Curlew by William Bowman of Lawrence. A truly fine example  of a shorebird decoy."  Again no proof or evidence is presented for a William Bowman as the maker of the Bunn decoys.


This citation has been discredited by the very editor of the book Joe Engers when he wrote this statement in reaction to all the new research that proved Bunn to be the real maker, Decoy Magazine November/December 2015, pages 18, 19 and 21, "As far as Decoy Magazine is concerned Charles Sumner Bunn is undoubtedly the carver of these exceptional Long Island decoys".


The second citation used is By G&D is The Decoys of Long Island, a catalog printed in 2010 by The Long Island Decoy Collectors Association.  The only thing of value the catalog has to offer are the writings of Geoffrey K. Fleming, the former director of the Southold Museum on Long Island's North Fork.  Some members of the Long Island Decoy Collectors Association led by Timmy Sieger and Ronnie McGrath are dedicated to the perpetuation of the William Bowman myth.  This group of decoy collectors are supposed to be dedicated to the research and history of Long Island decoys. However, they actually took a vote not to even discuss Bunn V. Bowman. They ignore all the research that has been presented for Bunn.


There is no mention of Bunn in the catalog, nine years after the research for Bunn was presented as the real maker.  And it is no surprise that in the "Biographies" section of this catalog on page76, we find "William Bowman" who's birth and death dates are strangely listed as dates unknown.  It is just the same rehash of Mackey and the Herricks disproven nonsense, which ends with this sentence, "William Bowman is well known for being Long Island's most famous and sought after carver."  By their taking this absurd stance for Bowman over Bunn, they display a total disregard for real research, as well as American and Long Island history.


So why would G&D Auctions use disproven and out of date references for their cataloging of   Lot 453 and other Bunn decoys they have presented that they call Bowman's?  And why didn't G&D cite the latest articles written for Decoy Magazine by Joe Jannsen and myself on the decoys made by Charles Bunn? G&D failed to explain why some people "believe" Bunn is the maker, which would be those articles not cited.  I can only assume this is the only way Guyette & Deeter can bolster their untenable support for the William Bowman myth.  How very unprofessional.  And the truly despicable thing about G&D stance for Bowman is they shamelessly and selfishly will not give credit to the real maker.
 



 





   
 
 

Turning Uncle Henry Bennett Folk Art into Chief Cuffee Decoys

Turning Uncle Henry Bennett folk art into "Chief" Cuffee Decoys for Fun and Profit


This is the story of how an unscrupulous Bridgehampton Long Island decoy collector /dealer turned a pair of William "Uncle Henry" Bennett decorative folk art shorebirds that were made in Springs, East Hampton, Long Island into a pair of Eugene "Chief" Cuffee shorebird decoys made in Southampton, Long Island on the Shinnecock Reservation, and sold by Abercrombie & Fitch Manhattan, NYC.



East Hampton decoy collector David Bennett began actively collecting Uncle Henry's work in the early part of the 21st century as he was completing his ground-breaking research proving Uncle Henry Bennett to be the maker of the folk art and decoys that had been called Chief Cuffee's for a little over 20 years.


Dave's family is one of the oldest Anglo families on Long Island. His ancestors first settled on Gardiner's Island with Lion Gardiner in 1639.  Early on, the Bennetts moved from Gardiner's Island to Long Island to the area called Springs on Accabonac Harbor in East Hampton.  Dave's deep roots in the area, coupled with the fact that he was an oil burner mechanic and fuel deliveryman for years, gave him access and opportunity to acquire decoys and information on local decoy makers and rigs from the East Hampton area.  Sometimes he was able to acquired entire rigs of retired decoys.  But there are also quite a few other collectors from the area also searching for decoys, so competition can be can be quite keen. 


In 2003, Dave got a tip that an East Hampton woman by the name of Nancy Reutershan had some decoys she wanted to sell, and among them he was told were some Uncle Bennett birds.  Dave went to see her but he was too late.  Mrs. Reutershan had already sold them a few months before in December of 2002 to our collector from Bridgehampton previously mentioned.  Dave had asked about the two Uncle Henry birds he had been told she had.  She did not remember his name but she told Dave the same thing she had told the Bridgehampton collector who she sold them to; that she, "Had bought them as a young bride in the early 1950's."  She also told him she bought them, "From an old Bonacker with one leg from Three Mile Harbor who had made them and sold them on the side of the road."  She told Dave the pair of birds had, "Golden Plover written under their tails in pencil." She also said that,"They had sat on her shelf for 50 years until she had sold them."


In the research Dave and I had been doing on Uncle Henry, it was critical to be able to tie birds that would be called "Cuffees" by dealers, auction houses and collectors at the time, to William "Uncle Henry" Bennett, eliminating Cuffee as their maker.  The two Reutershan birds did exactly that.  She did not recall his name, but there is no mistaking who she was referring to.  "Uncle Henry" was an old Bonacker.  He had only one leg.  He lived on Three Mile Harbor Road and he sold his birds by the side of that road.  So Dave thanked her for her information.


Then he contacted the Bridgehampton dealer she had sold them to.  Dave wanted to see if he could buy the two carvings from him, or at least photograph this pair that were documented as definitely the work of Uncle Henry, which was extremely important to our research.  When Dave contacted the buyer of the two Uncle Henry's, he told Dave that he had already sold the pair to a Cuffee collector from Watermill, Long Island.


What would a Cuffee collector want with a pair of carvings that were made by a "Bonacker" from  Springs, where he lived and "sold his carvings"?  Because the unscrupulous Bridgehampton dealer/collector had left those and other facts out about Mrs.Reutershan's two golden plovers.  The pair of plovers had been sold to a gullible "Cuffee" collector as "Chief Cuffee golden plovers"  that were bought by a woman who had purchased them from Abercrombie & Fitch in Manhattan.  The only truth in this string of lies was that they were bought by a woman.


The collector from Watermill was informed that the birds weren't "Cuffees" and how he had been taken for a ride by his Buddy from Bridgehampton.  He also was informed of the real history of the carvings and he was given Mrs. Reutershan's phone number and address to confirm what what he was being told was accurate.  But our William Henry Bennett collector, who considered himself a Cuffee collector, did not contact Mrs. Reutershan.  He didn't want to hear the truth.  He was sticking with the guy who screwed him because that guy had told him that the birds were Cuffee's, and that's what he wanted to hear.


Later Dave Bennett was able to get a photo of the pair of birds and when shown the photo, Mrs.Reutershan identified them instantly as the pair of birds that had sat on her shelf, and the birds she had dusted for 50 years before selling them.


So the real history of these two pieces of American folk art was changed without thought or care for the true history.  Some might say, well everyone called them Cuffee's at the time, so why believe this old lady who had actually bought them from their maker?  After all, she was no decoy expert like our Bridgehampton decoy collector/dealer expert.  But that does not explain the lie about A&F.  The fact that he had told his pigeon from Watermill that they had come out of Abercrombie & Fitch is a lie and a deliberate distortion of decoy history to guild the lily and put money in his unscrupulous pocket.  But why did he say that they had come from A&F?


Other than the obvious prestige of having been purchased out of the old tweedy "Gun Room" at the equally prestigious address of their old headquarters at Madison and 45th Street in Manhattan, NY.  There was a rumor or story, most likely started by Bob Gerard, that Cuffee's work had been sold by A&F.  Where the A&F story came from can only be conjecture.  It most likely happened when Bob Gerard interviewed Charles Bunn's daughter, Mrs. Martinez.  In Gerard's chapter in Dr.Stone's book, he mentions some of the wealthy sports who were Bunn's clients.  David Abercrombie founder of A&F is not mentioned.  But Gerard does write of Bunn's trip to Canada on a moose hunt.  On this trip Charles Bunn, accompanied David Abercrombie and Newbold Leroy Edgars.  Mrs.Martinez would not have mentioned the trip without the inclusion of her father's good friend David Abercrombie.


This A&F story interestingly was once backed up by decoy collector/dealer Joe Tonelli.  Joe at one time claimed to have an A& F catalog featuring "Chief Cuffee decoys" in it.  When he was pressed to make a copy of it and send it to me or Joe Jannsen, it was much like Ronnie McGrafth's non-existent " missing Bill Bowman photo."  Joe T. couldn't find it and it could not possibly have existed prior to Bob Gerard's Chief Cuffee fabrication around 1980 because they were not called Cuffees until then, and Abercrombie & Fitch closed in 1977 before anyone called the birds Cuffee's!


So now you have the facts surrounding how an unscrupulous Bridgehampton decoy collector /dealer distorted decoy and folk art history.  He lied to his fellow Long Island Decoy Collector Association member and supposed friend about the true maker of the two carvings he had bought from Mrs. Reutershan, and purposely changing decoy history for his self enrichment.  You also have learned of the stupidity of the so-called "Cuffee" collector from Watermill who is so invested in being a "Cuffee" collector, that he refused to contact the seller of the carvings to get the real story on the real maker.  And even after being told his pal from Bridgehampton had lied to him about the true maker of the birds, he was still his buddy.  That is a rare form of stupidly.


So now you have the truth about how two Uncle Henry Bennett folk art carvings became two "Chief Cuffee decoys".

 
 


 

 



 



   
 
                                                         
       

The Chief Cuffee Fabrication

         
                                      Robert Gerard and the Chief Cuffee Fabrication


In the year 2000 at a Long Island Decoy Collector's Association meeting, decoy collector, carver and researcher, David Bennett, of Springs, East Hampton, Long Island, casually said I don't think Cuffee made those decoys they say he made.  My immediate response was Bob Gerard did the research on the birds and he says Cuffee made them.  Dave then confided I think they were made by a Bonacker from Springs!  Bonackers are descendants of the English who settled around Accabonac Harbor in East Hampton, Long Island.  I told Dave see if you can find some evidence; do some research and I will check out Gerard's research.  The only reason these carving were said to have been made by Eugene "Chief" Cuffee (1866-1941) from the Shinnecock Reservation, Southampton, Long Island, was that Bob Gerard had said they were made by Eugene Cuffee.  Dave's research over the next few years proved without a doubt that the real maker was William Henry (Uncle Henry) Bennett (1867 -1954) from Springs, East Hampton, Long Island, and not by Eugene Cuffee, Southampton.  So what compelled Gerard to say the carvings were made by Eugene Cuffee?  What was his evidence for Eugene Cuffee?  How extensive was Gerard's research?
 
                                                               Robert S. Gerard
                                                                (1922-2007)



Robert Gerard was a decoy collector from East Setauket, Long Island, and he was without doubt a sociopath.  He was one of the most dishonest human beings I can ever remember encountering.  Bob was beyond crooked.  He was the person responsible for putting many re-heads, repaints and fake decoys on the market.  He was totally devoid of any morality.  He just loved ripping people off.
 
Bob was responsible for putting all the Point Pleasant model Wildfowler buffleheads on the market, which he sold as "Jim Van Brunt" decoys with the help of all the auction houses.  These birds were so obviously Wildfowler Decoys.  On Long Island among many collectors, they were a joke, but Bob had money and he bought decoys.  So, when he asked the auction houses to push his phony decoys, the auction houses became his willing partner in deception.  It would amaze me to see in the same auction, one lot listed as a pair of Point Pleasant or Babylon Wildfowler bufflehead decoys, and another lot that was identical in appearance to the aforementioned Wildfowler bufflehead decoys.  The only difference was the paint and these would be cataloged as by Jim Van Brunt from Setauket, Long Island.  These buffleheads always had a small lead pad weight and a typed label tied on with red yarn that said they were made by Jim Van Brunt in the 1950s.  The pattern for the birds came out of Charley Birdsall's Point Pleasant Wildfowler Co. in the 1960s.  Gerard also put out Point Pleasant pattern Wildfowler Company teal.  Gerard sold  these as Quogue Wildfowler teal.  They come complete with an inaccurate fake Quogue stamp which was pounded into the bottom of the bird, not burned in like the real brands were.  These were so obviously fakes and so obviously Point Pleasant Wildfowler decoys. There is no way the auction houses didn't know that they were completely bogus decoys.  So why did the auction houses fence Bob's fakes for him?  Because Bob spent a lot of money with those auction houses.  The auction houses gave him a wink, wink, nod, nod for the money that Bob gave them.



Bob Gerard really was not a expert on Long Island decoys or on any decoys for that matter.  As a matter of fact, he was one of the least knowledgeable decoy collectors I have every met.  Many collectors, dealers and members of the LIDCA despised him.  Bud Ward's animosity toward him was legendary.  They nearly came to blows once at a LIDCA meeting.  Bud had to be held back.  Ronnie McGrath, once a protégé of Bud Ward, also despised Bob Gerard.  Ronnie once told me of an encounter he had with Gerard where Ronnie told Gerard you're a mean old man, you know nothing about decoys, and nobody likes you.  Ronnie said that Gerard just laughed.  Ronnie told me Gerard knew what he had said was true, but Gerard didn't care because Bob knew there was a constant stream of suckers coming along who would buy his line of B.S. and his bad birds.



When people would ask me to look at birds they bought from Bob, I found most weren't right, and I would say in my opinion the bird is not right and tell them why I thought so, and advise them to return the bird to him. When someone would show me Bob's Point Pleasant Wildfowler fake Van Brunt's or his fake Quogue teal, I would not say it was my opinion, but would tell them they had bought fakes from Gerard and to go and get your money back, and if he gives you a problem, tell him I said they were fakes.  Generally, Gerard gave the money back no questions ask, but he always maintained that there was nothing wrong with them.



Bob put many fakes on the market.  A well known example is a fake pair of "Albert Terry rig" merganser decoys.  They were made by a great master contemporary carver.  These are a great example of Gerard's modus operandi.  Bob had the pair made.  Then he started to shop them around.  I first heard of them when he then tried to get Stephen O'Brien to broker them for him at an outlandish price. Stephen called me to ask me about them if I had ever seen the pair.  I told him I had never seen them and as far as I knew, Bob only had a hen bird and the head was a replacement.  I also told him to check them out stem to stern.  He also knew Gerard's reputation as a crooked dealer as he had dealt with him in the past.  When Stephen got the pair he called me and said theses decoys aren't right.  He said when he opened the box they came in he could smell the fresh cedar.  He sent the pair to Gigi Hopkins who declared them complete fakes.  Stephen dumped them back in Gerard's lap.  Gerard then tried to sell the pair at decoy shows.  That is where I got to actually hold them and I knew who who had made them immediately.  There were no takers.  Bob just waited a few years and then offered them to none other than the great experts at G&ampS.  Yes, the number one American decoy auction house Guyette & Schmidt, and they accepted them.  They even featured the discredited pair of fakes on page 5 in the full page Guyette &Schmidt ad in Decoy Magazine July/August 2004 for their upcoming auction in November.  G&H lists the pair as "Important pair of mergansers, circa 1870's by Albert Terry."  Then many collectors began to let the "experts" at G&S know they were not really all that important.  What they really were was a pair of Gerard's contemporary fake Albert Terry's, not actual Albert Terry's.  They were then pulled from the auction and returned to Gerard, but if G&S not been contacted and told that they were fakes, G&S would have sold the bogus birds at auction, or at least tried to.  I am assuming they would not have been pulled.  Ironically, this pair sold in a later auction listed correctly as to what they really are.


There is another well known fake shorebird decoy with Bob's figurative fingerprints all over it.  The bird was sold at auction a few years back, a turned head plover, years after it first appeared and had been declared a fake by many collectors, including Ronnie McGrath.  Gerard was responsible for also putting out many other fakes.  These decoys are now in many private collections.  Nothing was below Bob.  He once consigned a merganser drake to a G&S auction.  They listed it as a rare Wildfowler decoy.  Why anyone would think it came out of any Wildfowler Factory would be anybody's guess.  There was nothing Wildfowler Factory about it.  Right after the drake sold at auction, Gerard went up to the Wildfowler collector who had just bought the drake bird and told him, I just so happen to have the hen rigmate to the drake you just bought.  The collector bought the hen.  When the collector showed me the birds and told me the story about Bob having the rigmate to this very rare pair of Wildfowlers, I asked him what would make you think these birds are Wildfowlers? And Gerard just happened to have the rigmate to the "rare" drake?  And the pair were of a type never seen from  any Wildfowler Company before? Do you really think those two decoys are really Wildfowlers?  He thought for a moment and said, "I guess he screwed me."  I said, "Yes, I guess he did."


There is another story that circulated about another Gerard scam he pulled off.  It was said that Gerard first had 3 shorebird decoys discreetly produced by an unscrupulous master contemporary carver.  One of these birds he had consigned to auction and then he bought it for $10,000.  Gerard has invested in the cost of the production of three shorebird decoys and at the time of the auction he paid 10% to the auction house when he bought it.  He then would have gotten back 90% of the money from the auction.  Then Gerard said he "luckily" had found two more decoys just like the one that had sold at auction for $10.000, which established the worth of the bird.  Now Gerard has a trio of shorebird decoys that he can say are worth a combined price of  $30,000 in total.  He exhibited this trio at the annual show in Easton, Maryland and other venues  for years.  Ronnie McGrath pointed the trio out to me at his display in the artifacts area.  I told him that I had seen them. and we speculated on what contemporary carver had made them.


If Gerard invited you to his home to show you his "collection" it was because he thought he could get something from you.  Bob's "collection" was salted with bad birds mixed in among the good ones.  This was for the suckers.  He was predatory and specialized in the new collector, before they wised up, if they ever did, or were wised up that he was a dishonest dealer by members of the LIDCA or other collectors.  Some of the birds he would show you were as right as rain.  Others were reheads, rebills, major repairs, repaints, and flat out fakes.  And he put unrealistic prices on many of them, including his fake Van Brunt buffleheads, which he first offered at $350.00 a pair, but over time as the word got out that they were fakes, the price began to drop drastically year by year.  He was always willing to let you buy the bad birds from his collection, all the time pontificating on what great birds they were.  Most of the experienced dealers stayed clear of his offerings, but Bob and his wife Wilma could be sickeningly charming if they thought you were ripe for the picking.  If you were a less well-healed collector, Bob would have nothing but disdain for you.  Gerard was haughty, arrogant, egotistical and stupid, but he thought he was a genius and he acted as if everyone else was stupid.


Bob had wormed his way in to the Museums at Stony Brook where he became their expert, the go-to guy for decoy acquisitions.  This is a classic fox in the hen house situation.  In 1979, the Museums at Stony Brook published their paperback catalog of their collection titled Gunner's Paradise.  On page 4, we find, "A special thanks to the very knowledgeable members the Long Island Decoy Collectors Association, members George Combs, Sr. and Jr., Bob Gerard, Fred Kaseman, Ken Rohl and Bud Ward."  The fact is, these early collectors were not knowledgeable as to who were the makers of Long Island's decoys.  They really didn't know a thing about most of the true makers that they collected, traded or sold, and more than one of these guys was involved in the fabrication of decoy maker's names for decoys that would otherwise be unknowns, or said to have been made by other undocumented decoy carvers they didn't want to be the makers.  Obediah Verity, Will Southard and Eugene "Chief "Cuffee are misattributions; fabrications perpetrated by The Combs, father and son, Bud Ward and Robert Gerard.


In the Stony Brook catalog, there are two carvings from the collection that are without a doubt made by William Henry Bennett, known as "Uncle Henry" from Springs, East Hampton.  On page 84, number 114, we find "White-winged Scoter,1900s, Maker Unknown, Sag Harbor, Long Island."  The second bird is found on page132, number 228, "Lesser Yellowlegs, Maker Unknown, Long Island, one of a pair."  This bird is one is one of the many pairs of bookends made by Uncle Henry Bennett that have been sold as Cuffee's over the last 30 + years.  These are the type of carvings that would begin to be called Cuffee's starting in the early 1980s.  Gerard was among the Long Island Decoy Collectors Association's advisory group, but when Gunner's Paradise was printed Bob Gerard had not yet perpetrated the "Chief Cuffee" fabrication for the carvings really made by Uncle Henry Bennett. They are all listed as by an unknown carvers in 1979.



                                             The Preface Opportunity for Deception


The folk art shorebirds and the floating stool, both decorative and hunting, that were made by William "Uncle Henry" Bennett were once found all over long Island's twin forks, especially on the South Fork.  They were found in antique shops,"junk shops" and yard sales, and also sold by their maker, Uncle Henry Bennett, before his death in 1954, and they also sold for very moderate prices.  Collectors of real hunting decoys like Donal O'Brien, Bud Ward, Ronnie McGrath, and Dr. James McCleery, had nothing but contempt for the so-called "shorebird decoys" made by Bennett.  Bob Gerard had been collecting the Bennett carvings.  They were cheap and fairly plentiful, and Gerard would soon be offered an opportunity to cash in on them by turning unknowns into a known decoy maker.  Gerard's opportunity came around 1980 when Dr. Gaynell Stone was putting together the book she would edit titled, The Shinnecock Indians: A Culture History.  Some of the chapters were written by separate writers.  One of those writers was Bob Gerard.  Dr.Stone was put in touch with Bob Gerard, a self-proclaimed decoy expert and president of the Long Island Decoy Collector's Association at the time.  Gerard was ask to write a chapter on the decoy carvers from the Shinnecock Reservation, Southampton, Long Island.  The only truly documented decoy carver from the reservation was Charles Sumner Bunn.  Gerard wrote a chapter titled, "Shinnecock Indian Duck Decoys", and he would document Bunn as a decoy carver.  However, he would use this chapter to establish the Chief Cuffee fabrication, this to give a name to the Bennett decoys he owned.  Gerard's first paragraph was used to establish Cuffee as the maker of the Bennett folk art.  Bob Gerard writes,


"Waterfowl decoys, a unique form of American folk art, were not associated with the Shinnecock Indians until 1980, when a long bill curlew decoy was consigned to a famous Massachusetts auction house bearing an age stained label inscribed, 'Bought at Riverhead Auction 1940 by Chief Cuffee Southampton L.I.'"


This chapter would later be reprinted in Decoy Magazine May-June 1982 and this would be where most decoy collectors first learned why these carvings were being called "Chief Cuffee" decoys.  Gerard now began to push the Museums at Stony Brook to acquire "Chief Cuffee" decoys.  In 1985, the museum acquired a pair of old squaws by "Chief Cuffee".  I have no way of knowing, but I would not be surprised if it was Bob who consigner of the pair.  They were sold by Oliver's auction house for $2,100.00.  The museum also bought a folk art decorative heron by Bennett, but sold and purchased as a "Chief Cuffee" heron.


In 2007, Dr. Stone did a small reprint of her book.  After she reviewed our research for Bennett, she was none too happy to see that Gerard had lied to her about Cuffee being a decoy maker.  She was also very upset that he had used her book to establish Cuffee as a maker of carvings he had nothing to do with.  Dr.Stone asked me to write an Errata for the chapter Gerard had written for the reprint.  This Errata corrects the Chief Cuffee fabrication and establishes William Bennett as the real maker, not Cuffee.


Once David Bennett had shown me conclusive evidence that William Uncle Henry Bennett was the real maker of the folk art pieces Gerard had said were made by Eugene Chief Cuffee, I thought I needed to discover why Gerard had said they were made by Cuffee in the first place.  The problem I now faced was that I had no use for Gerard after he flooded the market with his Wildfowler fake Van Brunt's and fake Quogue Wildfowlers, our relationship went even further south.  So I reached out to Stony Brook Museum's curator, Joshua Ruff, to ask him if he could ask Bob Gerard what "famous auction house in the State of  Massachusetts" had sold this curlew in 1980?  Of course there was only one famous auction house that specialized in decoys in Massachusetts, the Richard A. Bourne Company Inc., but why didn't he name the famous auction house this supposed important decoy was sold by?  Why didn't Gerard specify the auction lot number for the curlew or the date the auction took place?  Josh said he would contact Gerard for me and ask him the name of the auction house that sold the curlew.  In the meantime, being that I did not have a 1980 Bourne catalog, I contacted my friend and pioneer decoy collector, Joe French, to ask him to check his 1980 Bourne catalog for the curlew with the  description Gerard wrote of.  I also ask Joe Engers of Decoy Magazine to check his 1980 Bourne catalog.  The reply from both was that their was no description found in the 1980 Bourne catalog that matched Gerard's description for the  "Cuffee" curlew.  So now I knew the curlew was not in the Bourne 1980 catalog.  At that point we checked every Bourne catalog for the description Gerard cited and there was no such description in any of them.


Gerard had been away on vacation in Austria, so when Joshua finally got back to me he said, "Bob said the curlew was in the 1980 Bourne catalog."  I said no it wasn't in the Bourne 1980 catalog  Joshua said what do you mean.  I said it's not in the 1980 Bourne catalog. Then Joshua said well maybe he was mistaken and it is in another catalog.  I said Joshua the reason we have called these carvings Cuffee's is predicated on Bob Gerard saying they were first found in a 1980 catalog.  Then I told Josh that we had checked every Bourne catalog and the description is not found in any of their auction catalogs, or in any known auction house's catalogs in America, and that without a doubt, Gerard had fabricated the Cuffee attribution.  Bob Gerard stuck to his disproven Cuffee story for the rest of his life.  He never could produce the catalog he claimed existed, because it doesn't exists.


Lyle Smith is from the Shinnecock Reservation who had only recently begun to collect William Henry Bennett carvings being sold as Cuffee's.  All of a sudden Lyle claimed to be a Cuffee expert. At the January 2006 LIDCA meeting, he was supposed to give a talk to prove that Cuffee was the real maker of the Bennett carvings.  In Lyle's "talk" he presented no evidence for Cuffee as a decoy maker.  Actually all he did was rant and rave about how horrible David Bennett, David Martine and myself are.  When Lyle was asked for proof that Cuffee made the decoys, Lyle hade no proof for Cuffee.  The only thing he had was Bob Gerard's fabricated story.  He did speak about 91 year old Muriel Cuffee who Lyle said had said "Cuffee had made decoys", but with no proof for Cuffee as the maker.   When LIDCA member Frank Murphy ask Lyle, "If we were to show Mrs. Muriel Cuffee a shorebird decoy, could she identify it as a Cuffee?"  Lyle said No!



Joe Jannsen  presented a PowerPoint  on William Henry Bennett one month after Lyle's so-called presentation.  Joe's presentation proved the carvings were made by William Henry Bennett and not Eugene Cuffee, yet Joe was challenged by Wilma Gerard saying last month Lyle Smith said Cuffee made them.  Joe said what evidence did Lyle produce to show Cuffee made them? She had nothing to say; she shut up.  Lyle Smith just sat there and he also had nothing to say because he hadn't presented any evidence for Cuffee.  All he had done in his presentation was whine about how awful we researchers were and that people on the reservation were proud of his defense of Cuffee.


Bob Gerard interjected that the proof was that a curlew had sold at the 1980 Bourne Auction listed as made by Chief Cuffee.  I kid you not, he still claimed it was in the 1980 Bourne catalog, that anyone could look at and see it  wasn't in that catalog  Joe said Bob it's not in the 1980 Bourne auction catalog.  Gerard just sat down, bowed his head and said nothing.  Gerard at that point knew the jig was up.  His deception had been exposed.  He had no refuge from his lie.  Gerard was defeated in his false claim for Cuffee.


Gerard started dumping his "Cuffee''s" at bargain prices.  His Cuffee fabrication had been easily exposed and he was getting out of the Cuffee business.  But Bob jumped the gun.  Bob didn't count on what would happen next.  Nether did I.  The auction houses were caught off guard.  Dealers and collectors were God-smacked.  Some started calling them Cuffee/Bennetts.  But Bob Gerard and his Cuffee's had a new and very unexpected champion, none other than Ronnie McGrath.  Out of the blue, Ronnie who had despised both Bob Gerard and his "Cuffee's" became their savior.  Ronnie in true Don Quixote fashion would now gallop at full speed at the William Henry Bennett Windmill.  Ronnie's new scenario is the same scenario he used for Charles Bunn in that Ronnie has the documented carver Bunn copying the fabricated Bill Bowman, and now the documented William Henry Bennett copying the work of the fabricated Eugene Cuffee. All of this is based on absolutely no research.


Some auction houses liked this compromise, but many just stuck with Gerard's proven fabrication for Cuffee.  The facts are William Henery Bennett made all the carvings formerly attributed to either an unknown carver or "Cuffee".  The shorebirds are all decoratives and not working stool.  There is no evidence for Cuffee as a maker of any decoys that we know of, and if he did make decoys, they would most likely resemble the work of his first cousin, Charles Sumner Bunn.      

 





   



 












   

Hunting & Fishing Collectibles Magazine's Denial of Charles Bunn ( Part 3: Ronnie in Wonderland)

              
Ronnie McGrath's writings remind me of a decoy version of Alice in Wonderland
                                                     
Ronnie's unsubstantiated fanciful contradictory ramblings are like a romp though the world of Alice and Ronnie is the Mad Hatter at this tea party.  One of Ronnie's latest trips down the Rabbit Hole is found in his May - June 2015 rebuttal in Stan Van Etten H&F Collectibles Magazine.  This is in reference to the Redhead with Bunn carved in the bottom previously sold by Guyette & Schmidt as a "Bill Bowman" decoy, and later sold as a Charles Bunn by Copley Auctions in 2014.  This decoy of course is empirical evidence for Bunn as the real maker of the"Bowman" decoys.

Ronnie has pointed out many times that G&S, now G&D, are still calling the decoys Bowman's.  This would infer to a great level of knowledge  possessed by G&D on the decoys in question.  Then why did they sell this decoy as a "Bowman" if it is a Bunn like Ronnie claims?  Wouldn't they with all their knowledge know a Bowman from a Bunn?  No not really because G&S or Ronnie didn't even know about Bunn or his work until I made the discovery that Bunn was the real maker of the so called "Bowman" decoys.


Ronnie can't explain away the name Bunn carved into a decoy sold as a Bowman.  So on page 8, Ronnie comes up with a very novel way to pretend that he knows the way to tell the difference between the non-existent Bill Bowman's decoys and those he claims are Bunn's copies.  Ronnie shows a photo of the Bunn Readhead with the name Bunn carved in the body next to another Bunn Redhead.  Both decoys are similar to, if not some of the decoys seen on Bunn's table in the 1906 photo.  Ronnie writes that the decoy on the left with Bunn carved in the bottom is indeed a Bunn copy of a Bowman and he says that the one on the right is a real "Bowman".  He gives two ways to be able to tell the difference in the work of Bunn and Bowman:


 (1) The way the body seam is cut is the prime indicator of  the difference.  Ronnie says "Bowman" decoys are cut above the tail and that the Bunn's decoys are cut "below the tail".
 (2) The bill placement, which he says is different in Bowman's and Bunns work.
       
But then on Page 12, we find a pintail drake referred to as a Bowman, yet the seam is cut below the tail. This, according to Ronnie, is one of two ways to tell a Bunn from a Bowman.  Ronnie solves this contradictory dilemma in Ronnie Land by simply stating that, "there are four know Bowman's that are cut under the tail".


So the center seam would not be a way to tell the mythical Bowman decoys from real Bunn decoys.  Now according to Ronnie, its down to the decoy bills to determine the difference between a Bunn and a Bowman.  The bills on many of the Bunn floating stool display different styles, not to mention that some most likely have been repaired or replaced.  So the bills on the floating stool could not be a way to determine today if they were made by more than one maker.  The bill would not be a way to tell the difference as Ronnie claims.  Joe Jannsen in his letter to the editor to H&F, who was apparently afraid to print it, which was subsequently printed in Decoy Magazine points out the absurdity of Ronnie's "center seam" theory. 


And once again, Gary Guyette and Frank Schmidt described this decoy in the catalog  as a decoy by Bowman.  They sold it as a decoy "by William Bowman of Lawrence NY from the Mort Hanson collection".  It was sold to a collector who bought it as a Bowman Redhead and then sold to Joe by Copley Fine Art auctions as a "Bunn".


In Joe Jannsen, Decoy Magazine, May-June 2015, page 12, "Anticipation then disappointment", Joe points out how ridiculous Ronnie is in his desperation to prove he can  separate the decoys by a center seam cut.  Ronnie wrote that at least four Bowman decoys exist with the seam below the tail. Joe points out the obvious that wold negate Ronnie's claim for the way to tell the difference!  In the H&F Collectibles Magazine rebuttal to Jannsen's obvious observation, which is not a rebuttal, Ronnie just reiterates his seam separation theory.  A rebuttal would be something like proof for Bowman as a carver, and the dissemination of the evidence for that claim.  However, with nowhere to seek refuge from reality, Ronnie does a little fishtailing.  He tries to get out of the corner he has painted himself into by writing, "My purpose in presenting the difference in body- seam construction is to show that Bowman, as well as some other decoy makers, explored, experimented and evolved their craft."  That is not what Ronnie was saying.  Ronnie is rewriting his own fake history.  If the non-existent Bowman did cut his seam below the tail on some of his decoys, that would mean that "Bowman" was copying "Charles Bunn's style".  
   
There is only one conclusion that a rational human being living outside of Ronnieland can make, and that is that Charles Sumner Bunn (1865-1952) is the maker of all the decoys that have been called Bowman since 1966-67 Decoy Collector's Guide edition.  And that the story by Newbold L. Herrick and Bill Mackey declaring a William "Bill" Bowman as the maker of the decoys really made by Charles Bunn was a fabrication.  Ronnie's always late to the table.


Ronnie continually presents new more childish fairy-tale scenarios for "Bowman". These scenarios have to be created to try to explain away new documented facts that he can't refute with real facts of his own.  One thing Ronnie doesn't know is that the bottom weight on the redhead decoy is a Bunn weight and these same weights are found on many of the decoys Ronnie says were made by "Bowman". Why would you find Bunn weights on "Bowman" decoys?
 
In the November -December 2015 H&F Collectibles Magazine, Ronnie's attempts to rebut my latest article in Decoy Magazine May- June 2015, titled "Dating the Shorebirds of Charles Sumner Bunn".  This article shows empirical evidence that Bunn used the flat art work produced by two American artists, Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Rex Brasher, as the models for his best known work.  Ronnie keeps up his relentless Bowman/Herrick mantra.  He writes, "I agree with Reason that Bunn's shorebird decoys were made after 1910-1917. We know that Bowman's decoys were made before 1906".  Once again Ronnie ignores the fat that a Bill Bowman as a decoy maker does no exists.  And we don't know Bowman made decoys before 1906.  There are no facts to back that statement up.  And he ignores the evidence we have presented that proved the shorebird decoys he loves to call Bowman's could not have been produced prior to1910, eliminating his favorite fantasy decoy carver  Bill Bowman from the picture.


Later in his so-called rebuttal, Ronnie actually  presents my case for Bunn as having used the art work of the two aforementioned artists remarkably well, though I am certain that was not his intent.  Ronnie gets so deep into trying to prove my research is wrong that he can't see the forest for the trees.  He gets lost in his ever-changing scenarios.  Ronnie often likes to use the words "logical" and "illogical", yet he appears not to have the vaguest understanding of the meaning of either word.  Ronnie relies on his standard list of possiblys, maybes, and  could bes that he hopes will convince readers that real facts don't matter, but that his fantasy scenarios do.


Ronnie writes, "one could easily argue that the art work of Fuertes  and Brasher could have been influenced  by the shorebirds of Bowman".  One could argue that, but it would not be "logical".  It would be "illogical".  Because Ronnie never does any real research, he makes ridiculous blunders, as in the case of the artists Fuertes or Brasher.  Ronnie speculates that the two artists Rex Brasher and Louis Fuertes could have used "Bowman" decoys as inspiration for their art work.  Oh brother.
   
In Rex Brasher's official Artist's Bio, we learn that Brasher's father was an amateur naturalist and bird taxidermist.  "At age 8 Brasher had decided he would paint birds from life and that he wanted to be better than Audubon. By 16 he was doing just that.  In 1907 he first met the already established Ornithologist/Artist Louis A. Fuertes while he was studying bird skins at the Museum of Natural History in New York City".  Brasher's bio also states that he "worked from direct observation". 


Ronnie also writes that Brasher hunted "Rockaway-Lawrence area of Long Island", but as usual, he cites no proof for his claim.  And it would make no difference where he hunted, because Brasher didn't use decoys as models for his art work.  Brasher grew up in Brooklyn (people from Brooklyn are documented as to hunting from Brooklyn to Montauk).  He moved to Connecticut in 1907, the State that he would call home for 53 years until his death.


In the November/ December 2015 issue of Decoy Magazine, Joe Engers officers $10,000 dollar reward for Ronnie's make believe photo of Bill Bowman that he says Ronnie Bauer lost or misplaced.  And I will pay for Ronnie's polygraph test as to the veracity as to whether the photo ever existed (it doesn't).  Joe and I have no worries about shelling out any money.


I have been asked by people why Ronnie would attack our research the way he does and why he can't see how ridiculous he looks.  I have no answer as to why.  Maybe some one should ask him that question by writing a Letter to the Editor in Hunting & Fishing Collectibles Magazine, but Stan VanEtten would  most likely not print it.  As we know, he only prints letters from people who support Ronnie.