Creekside Art Gallery Blog

Jay Cooke became one of the most powerful figures in America by the mid-nineteenth century. He rubbed shoulders with the most prominent socialites, politicians, and business moguls and mucked through marshlands with local hunters, guides, and fishermen from the Mid-West to the East Coast. He was someone directly involved in the mix of dramatic historical events unfolding around him; he had power and influence.

A long-standing controversy exists regarding the identities of makers of certain styles of early Delaware River waterfowl decoys. It is referred to as "the Blair Mystery." Questions related to it have consistently ignored how the transmission or origin of design concepts occurred, perhaps resulting from a limiting regionalized focus and perspective. However, there is a significant larger picture; and, Jay Cooke is the pivotal character.

In 1977, author and publisher Hal Sorenson wrote an article in Decoy Collector’s Guide, volume six, "The Blair Mystery." He stated "If you believe, as many do, that John Blair, Sr. was a banker, it is unlikely he either made or painted decoys." (Sorenson p.71) We now know that Blair wasn’t a banker but rather a successful carriage manufacturer. That quote, however, has remained a puzzling one. It was puzzling until reading Jay Cooke’s memoirs. In it, Cooke and his friends refer to Cooke as "the Banker from Philadelphia." Might there be a relevant connection or is it merely a coincidence?

Jay Cooke was born in Sandusky, Ohio on August 10th, 1821. The family home was named "Ogontz" in honor of an old Indian chief who had once lived on the same land. The house overlooked Sandusky Bay and Lake Erie. Jay’s father, Eleutheros Cooke, and mother, Martha Caswell, were well educated Easterners who possessed pioneering spirits. Their brave and difficult journey found them in the untamed Midwest as early as 1817. The general area where they settled was a paradise teeming with deer, waterfowl, and fish. It was there that young eight-year old Jay Cooke developed his life-long passion for hunting and fishing.

"I was a hunter and fisherman and many a time I have slipped out into the woods and prairies at 4 A.M. and brought home plenty of game or have gone in a canoe to the cove and brought back a good supply of fresh fish." (Cooke p. 10)

"From my earliest boyhood I have roamed the waters of Sandusky Bay and this island region and every portion of it is most familiar to me. I have explored every hunting and fishing ground, I have camped out for a week at a time and on occasions in the forests and marshes bordering the lake and bay and upon many of the islands, I have captured every variety of game and fish." (Cooke p. 21)

In addition to being an avid and adept outdoorsman, Cooke boasted of his creative talents. "Now I was skillful in fashioning little boats and rigging them, boats of all sizes from 4 to 20 inches in length and I even attained so far as to manufacture a `steam boat.’ It was 16 inches long, had paddle wheels, smoke stack, etc. and the motor power was derived from an old clock spring and when set in motion and with some burning gum placed in the smoke stack was a fair illustration of the rude steamers of those days." (Cooke 2)

Cooke fulfilled a boyhood fantasy when he had his own plush passenger steamer custom built for multiple uses on his beloved lake in 1867. And, in those later years he continued to closely follow the annual habits of game in all areas where he lived and visited, a habit learned in his youth.

"It may be for 20 or 30 years no one has yet been able to decide the length of the life of the black bass. But that they have their own resorts I am satisfied, just as the shad who are born in the Susquehanna, Delaware, and Potomac Rivers return unerringly to the river wherein they were born."(Cooke 26)

Surrounding Jay Cooke’s home on the south shore of Lake Erie were vast and rich marshlands, which provided idyllic waterfowl habitats. During the last half of the nineteenth century, over fifty shooting clubs were formed there. One of the most prominent and exclusive was and is the Winous Point Shooting Club, started in 1856. It continues today. However, well prior to its forming, Cooke was already familiar with the area as he regularly hunted and fished those marshes and waters. Others joined him.

"In the early 1850’s a number of men from Sandusky were members of an organization, likely the predecessor of the present Club [Winous], your records must show this – if a fact – I think James Cook, J.C. Mc Ewen, Wm. Durbin, Pres. of S.M.&W.R.R. at that time – Judge S.B. Caldwell, Jay Cooke, Banker of Philadelphia, and my father, and Lester Boalt, Norwalk, were some of the original members. I knew these men used to go there duck hunting and perhaps stopped with Mr. & Mrs. Earle, before the present Club was installed, and bought the grounds where the Clubhouse is located."(Sadler 3)

Jay Cooke became a registered member of the Winous Shooting Club in 1859. He also owned a fishing lodge, perhaps part of the Oquossoc Angling Association, in far off Maine. While Cooke most likely was a member of other such clubs, he certainly would have enjoyed being a frequent guest at numerous prestigious ones wherever he visited. That was the custom of the day.

On one occasion, "Mr. Sloan the president of the Mad River and Lake Erie R.R. had invited to Put-in-Bay [near Sandusky] for 3 days stay some 300 guests consisting of Gov. Hayes [later President], Leut. Gov. and all the State Officials and their wives and family, the pres. of many railroads, bankers, etc."(Cooke 27)

"They said they had been promised fresh fish fried, baked, roasted and broiled and that not one of those promises had been kept. What had `the Prince of the Isles’ for they called by that name to say in his defense?"(Cooke 28) "I volunteered in my own individual behalf to right at once this great wrong."(Cooke 28)

On his return,"The Island was literally covered with the three hundred Editors, Statesmen, women and children who came flocking down to the wharf."(Cooke 29) Jay Cooke fulfilled his promise by personally catching all of the fish necessary to abundantly feed the gathering.

The banker from Philadelphia built a summer home, which he called "Gibraltar" and some referred to as "Cooke’s Castle," on an island in Put-in-Bay. In 1866 he also owned a second home very near Philadelphia in Chelten Hills. In remembrance of his parent’s house and the old chief, he named that one "Ogontz;" and, it was conveniently located only six miles from hunting and fishing on the rich Delaware River. Two decades later it became the exclusive Ogontz School for Girls.

Starting around 1838, Cooke regularly traveled between Sandusky, Philadelphia, and New York for both business and pleasure. A listing of his friends, acquaintances, and associates would be quite long and tremendously impressive. It would include state governors, major bankers, railroad and ship owners, government officials, high-ranking military officers, and several United States Presidents. His brother Gov. H.D. Cooke of the District of Columbia helped found the Republican Party.

Needless to say, Jay was extremely well connected. For example, one morning while conducting business at the residence of Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase (former Ohio Senator and Governor) in Washington, a servant announced that Attorney General Edward Bates and President Abraham Lincoln were outside waiting in a carriage. Shortly, the four men left to meet with General George B. Mc Clellan to review his troops, soon bound for battle.

Interestingly, Mc Clellan was born in Philadelphia and at one time, was vice president and president of two mid-western railroads, which typically could have been financed by Cooke’s bank. Mc Clellan also commanded the Ohio Militia. This was not a first or chance meeting.

Another person in Lincoln’s cabinet was Postmaster General Montgomery Blair (Was he related to John Blair, the carriage manufacturer and decoy maker from Philadelphia?). Montgomery Blair moved to Maryland in 1853 and lived in the Blair House, which was directly across from the White House; the United States government now owns that residence.

There were several other John Blairs, which complicate research; for example, one was John Insley Blair of Blairstown, New Jersey. He was a rich railroad magnate and philanthropist. He served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1860 and 1868 where he would have met and worked with Jay Cooke’s brother. Was he another relative? Cooke clearly was in a position to know almost anyone of significance. He had become a major banker, who had a profound impact on the American monetary system.

In those days long distance journeys required frequent and multiple transfers by carriage, rail, and ship. The affluent, like Cooke, traveled in comfort. In Ohio he owned a luxurious paddle wheel steamer christened the "Jay Cooke" in 1867; it was the equivalent of a grandiose modern day yacht.

Utilizing his position and connections, Cooke convinced New York artist James Bard (1815-1897) to paint the new vessel as one of the very few ship portraits that Bard ever did outside of the East Coast. "Only once, as far is known, did Bard depart from the environs of the Hudson River for his background. This was in a portrait of the steamer `Jay Cooke,’ shown against what must be the island called Gibraltar in Put-in- Bay, Lake Erie. It is assumed that the mansion shown on the hillside beyond the vessel is the summer home of Jay Cooke himself, noted Philadelphia financier and owner of the steamer." ( Lipman and Armstrong p.56)

In typical Bard fashion, the pure white vessel was bedecked with flamboyant flags and banners. Bard’s pre-Civil War patrons were Cooke’s peers and each expected precision. Bard’s art reflected their status. Cooke also commissioned other recognized American artists like Thomas Moran (1837-1926) for various projects. Jay Cooke was honored with a partnership in the banking firm of E.W. Clark And Company in Philadelphia in 1839. He was only eighteen! By 1860 he established his own bank, Jay Cooke And Company, which handled the majority of United States bonds issued during the Civil War. His bank was also responsible for helping finance significant commercial projects like the building of the Northern Pacific Railroad. How is such information relevant to the history of decoy making? Traditional thinking speculates that the normal transmission of ideas moved from east to west as the continent was settled. However, in special cases that may not be true. For example, the movements of people of serious influence like Jay Cooke challenge those premises.

In the Delaware River region John Blair, Sr. (1842-1928) and John English (1848-1915) are considered the founding fathers of Delaware River decoy styles. If an age of twenty is assigned to each to establish the beginnings of mature carving periods, then 1862 and 1869 respectively represent the start of their careers as quality makers. "He (John Blair) made his first decoys of record soon after the Civil War, around 1866, a rig of 17 mallards." (Huster 35)

Who were their influences? John Blair was the member of two southeastern Pennsylvania shooting clubs, one in Frankford and one in Bridesburg both now part of Philadelphia. Jay Cooke’s home, Ogontz, was directly upstream a few miles on Tacony Creek. It became a fishing retreat visited by Herbert Hoover and many others. The Tacony flows into the Delaware River at Bridesburg. For comparison, Ned John Hauser (1826-1900) was an accomplished decoy maker in Sandusky, Ohio by 1850. His most prolific period of production lasted until 1880. Hauser was creating hollow decoys with classic lines in Ohio when Blair and English were only children. It is important to note that John Hauser was employed as a master painter and decorator by the Sandusky, Mansfield, and Newark Railroad, which later became the important Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. With his skill and in that position in Sandusky, he was most certainly known by Jay Cooke.

The Winous Point Shooting Club formed in 1856 on grounds actively hunted over decades earlier. From its beginnings, classic decoys were in use at Winous. Members’ initials like "G.A.S." for George A. Stanley (Winous member 1857-1884) were customarily branded into the bottoms of club decoys. Those brands help confirm their in-use periods. For forty years, numbers of those decoys have been erroneously identified as "East Coast" in books, auction catalogs, and articles, compounding "the mystery." Some "Blair School" decoys have Ohio brands; some Ohio decoys have brands from currently unknown source.

As indicated, Jay Cooke first discovered the joy of hunting local Ohio marshes in 1828. By 1838 he was working and enjoying a gentleman’s sporting life in and around Philadelphia. At that point neither Blair nor English had been born. An examination of the chronological record of historical events and a comparative analysis of early decoys from both Ohio and the Delaware River has convinced this author that the earliest Ohio decoys are indeed native to Ohio. John Hauser and several unknown local peers developed decoy forms specifically for hunting on Ohio marshes and rivers for an elite clientele who afforded and expected only the best. Some of those decoys have brands, which date them prior to the classic productivity of Blair or English. It is a highly likely scenario that Jay Cooke owned and used such decoys quite early in Ohio, although the evidence is circumstantial. It is also probable that he transported his personal hunting rig, favorite guns, and tailored gentleman’s gear by steamboats and trains to his second home near the Delaware. Perhaps he took samples to serve as reference models for local craftsmen. Undoubtedly, he was either a member of or invited guest at the exclusive shooting clubs in areas, in which he lived and visited.

Several possibilities exist for the development of regional ideas and designs. One, these events resulted from pure spontaneous inspiration or incredible co-incidence. Two, regional styles in North America evolved independently. Three, there were interactive influences from various sources, like Cooke.

Hopefully, this information will provide the stimulus for a re-examination of accepted orthodox theories regarding the origins of decoy forms.

References

Armstrong, Tom and Lipman, Jean, AMERICAN FOLK PAINTERS OF THREE CENTURIES, Whitney Museum of Art, Arch Cape Press, New York, New York, 1980.

Cooke, Jay, Unedited Memoir, July 26, 1894.

Gosner, Kenneth L., WORKING DECOYS OF THE JERSEY COAST AND DELAWARE VALLEY, Cornwall Books, Cranbury, New Jersey, 1985.

Huster, Harrison H. and Knight, Doug, FLOATING SCULPTURE: THE DECOYS OF THE DELAWARE RIVER, Hillcrest Publications Inc., Spanish Fork, Utah, 1982.

Kangas, Gene and Kangas, Linda, DECOYS: A NORTH AMERICAN SURVEY, Hillcrest Publications, Spanish Fork, Utah, 1983.

Peluso, Anthony J., Jr. and the Mariner’s Museum, THE BARD BROTHERS: PAINTING AMERICA UNDER STEAM AND SAIL, Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, New York, 1997.

Sadler, C.W., A Private Letter to A.W. Gardiner, Written in Sandusky, Ohio, January 6, 1932.

Sorenson, Harold D., DECOY COLLECTOR’S GUIDE, Volume Six, Sorenson Publishing, Burlington, Iowa, 1977.

Photo Captions

Jay Cooke. Photo courtesy of the Jay Cooke Collection, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center.

Jay Cooke and Friends. Photo courtesy of the Jay Cooke Collection, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center.

Jay Cooke with successful day’s hunt. Photo courtesy of the Jay Cooke Collection, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center.

John English Black Duck circa 1870. Branded "J. English." Collection of Gene and Linda Kangas.

Hollow Winous Point Shooting Club Redhead with the "J.H. Porter" brand. Circa 1878. Kangas Collection.

Canvasback drake used at the Winous Point Shooting Club circa 1857. ON the bottomof this hollow decoy is the brand of George A. Stanley (G.A.S.).

Two Hollow Canvasbacks made by Ned John Hauser circa 1850. Hauser is the earliest documented maker in Ohio and one of the earliest in North America. Kangas Collection.

Published Maine Antique Digest  August 2002  and  Decoy Magazine 2002