Decoys of Dorchester County, a special exhibit featuring decoys from the private collections of East Coast Decoy Collectors Club members and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s (CBMM) permanent collection, opens at the Museum’s Waterfowling Building on Saturday, April 9. The new exhibit is open to the public during regular Museum hours and runs through November 2011.
Dorchester County historically offered vast expanses of marshland as shelter and food for migrating ducks and geese along the Atlantic flyway. This translated into rich hunting grounds for area waterfowlers and a high demand for decoys. These gunners made their own decoys or often obtained them locally, producing some of the greatest variety of North American decoys, including some of the crudest to a few of the most refined.
The Museum’s exhibit opening is held in conjunction with the East Coast Decoy Collector’s “Buy, Sell & Swap” event held April 8th & 9th at the St. Michaels Best Western, which is also open to the public.
Image: From left: East Coast Decoy Collector’s members Ronnie Newcomb and Henry Stansbury, along with CBMM Chief Curator Pete Lesher show several decoys from the Museum’s Decoys of Dorchester County special exhibit, which opens April 9 at the Museum’s Waterfowling Building in St. Michaels, MD. The exhibit opening is held in conjunction with the East Coast Decoy Collector’s “Buy, Sell & Swap” event held April 8th & 9th at the St. Michaels Best Western, which is also open to the public. Photo Credit: David Harp, ChesapeakePhotos.com
The special exhibit is free for Museum members or with Museum admission. For more information, call 410-745-2916 or visit www.cbmm.org