Wings of Wonder is a great new book by Sporting Classics Senior Editor Dr. Lloyd Newberry
For four decades Dr. Newberry has been writing hunting and fishing stories chronicling his many adventures in 67 countries and provinces. Three of his prior books include Pages of Time: Memoirs of a Southern Sportsman, The Big Five of Africa and European Hunter: Hunting 33 Countries in the Old World.
For more than half a century, Dr. Newberry has been interested in old hand-carved duck and shorebird decoys. This passion has resulted in countless hours and trips in pursuit of these old birds and the history that each represents. His favorite decoys and geographic area for collecting has for many years been the Eastern Shore of Virginia. From his home on the coast of Georgia, he began making trips to Virginia in 1971 for waterfowl hunting and decoy collecting. His favorite decoys were those made by the Nathan Cobb family who emigrated to the Eastern Shore in 1837 and homesteaded on little more than an island sandbar.
Dr. Newberry’s book narrates the thrilling adventures of three Cobb family generations on this island paradise of fishing and waterfowl hunting. The lifelike decoys they produced are some of the most highly sought-after by collectors and historians today. Many of them fetch prices on the auction circuit of more than $50,000 and one spectacular goose decoy, was auctioned for more than $300,000. But equally as interesting are the many other adventures that this family experienced for a century before a major hurricane put an end to it all.
Illustrated with more than 500 beautiful and some very rare photographs, the book is over five years in the making. Wings of Wonder: The Remarkable Story of the Cobb Family and the Priceless Decoys They Created on Their Island Paradise is now available in two versions. The hardcover Collector’s book sells for $75. The Deluxe version, complete with a leather-bound cover and limited to 200 books, is $125.
Nathan Cobb and his family were iconic figures in the maritime and waterfowl gunning history of North America. With an ancestry and gene flow directly back to Plymouth Rock, Nathan’s father was a Cape Cod whaler and shipbuilder. Seeking a warmer climate for the women in his family who were suffering from tuberculosis, Nathan sailed south to homestead on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
With undaunted courage and fiber of steel, he built a home and community on an island that was little more than a sandbar. His life-saving and ship’s salvage business led to many harrowing experiences in stormy seas and freezing temperatures.
Natural resources were bountiful and the Cobb family became involved in the seafood and resort-style entertainment business. They developed farms and a grain mill on the mainland and, incredible as it may seem, built long rambling hotels on this sand spit of an island.
Living in the center of Virginia’s chain of barrier islands, the Cobbs were witness to one of the greatest concentrations of geese, brant, ducks and shorebirds, on the continent. Using that which Mother Nature provided, they developed one of the most outstanding sporting venues in the country, one that would attract guests from far and wide.
For their use in hunting, they crafted their own wooden decoys. Though natural and man-made disasters brought an end to their island paradise, these wonderful and highly coveted replicas of the many species they hunted cemented their fame among historians and folk art collectors for centuries to come.
The author traces this fascinating story through three generations of the Cobb family. It’s a chronicle that historians and folk-art collectors will find both educational and enjoyable. Buy Now
