Decoys - Jesse Birdsall & Family

According to one source, Jesse Birdsall was the first in a long line of decoy carvers, carpenters, and watermen. “Jesse had been the captain of a coastal schooner, Nathaniel was a boat builder and Eugene was a blacksmith and gunsmith. Eugene . . . moved first to Toms River in 1883 and then moved again to Loveland Town (Pt. Pleasant today) in 1890. Charlie’s father and uncles were all decoy makers in the tradition of Charlie’s great-uncle, Jesse Birdsall.”(1)

(1) DecoyMag.com (see link below).

Various New Jersey Decoys

Photographs from Robert J. Sim, Pages from the Past of Rural New Jersey (Trenton, NJ: New Jersey Agricultural Society, 1949).

The decoy in the bottom right corner of both photographs above has been identified as the work of Jesse Birdsall. In the bottom photo, the Canadian goose is by Birdsall. In the upper photograph, the solid wood female broad-bill has tentatively been identified as Birdsall’s work.