The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s “Gunning Among Friends: Chesapeake Waterfowl Hunting Clubs” exhibit will be featured in the Waterfowl Festival’s Harry M. Walsh Waterfowling Artifacts Exhibit, located at Easton High School throughout the November 9-11 event. CBMM’s exhibit is generously sponsored by leading decoy auction firm, Guyette, Schmidt & Deeter, and the exhibit’s principal lender, C. John Sullivan.
Banding together for a day’s hunting is a longtime practice among those hunting waterfowl for sport––and when the duck blind is too far from home, remote clubhouses near the Chesapeake’s marshy shorelines have provided a home away from home.
Whether populated by wealthy hunters from another state or working class friends from closer by, waterfowling clubs have formed along the Chesapeake Bay from the Susquehanna Flats in the north to the saltwater marshes along the lower Eastern Shore since the early nineteenth century. This exhibit examines these clubs, featuring historic photos, documents, decoys, and other gunning accoutrements.
CBMM’s waterfront campus in St. Michaels also includes a dedicated Waterfowling Building, which is open year-round and features the most comprehensive public collection of working decoys from the Chesapeake region, along with a collection of waterfowling boats, punt guns, and more from Dr. Harry Walsh’s collection.
For more information about the Waterfowl Festival, visit www.waterfowlfestival.org.
For information on CBMM, visit www.cbmm.org.