Charles Grubbs Memorial

My name is Gary Chambers and after close to a decade of looking for the grave of an early pioneer of duck call and duck decoy making Charles W. Grubbs (1848-1933) I found his resting place in the Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston, Texas.  While I was elated at finally locating his grave I was disappointed to discover that the grave in unmarked.  When discussing the situation with the call historian Bob Christensen he suggested that a "Go fund me" might be the solution to acquiring a memorial.

 Information about his grave site can be found here:

https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=120902410


Mr. Grubbs was one of the first individuals to design and manufacture the modern duck call. While his claim that he was the first to make the first modern call is debatable his influence on early duck call making and duck decoy manufacturing in Pascagoula, Mississippi is not.

Donna Tonelli has an excellent short history of C.W. here:

The name of Charles W. Grubbs came up often in the history of waterfowling in the Hennepin, Illinois area. In 1872, he married Amanda Hawkins whose father, Cha...uncey D. Hawkins, was one of the leading citizens of Illinois' Senachwine Township. The young newlyweds set up housekeeping, probably in a tent home which was a common practice, at Indians Springs on the western shore of Lake Senachwine where Charles fished commercially. Along this lake shore, there was a beautiful sand beach that was favored by locals as a summer gathering spot. In 1880, Grubbs approached George Sparling, the owner of this beach to lease the site and started the Undercliff Hotel and Summer Resort. He advertised rooms and various types of boats and fishing equipment for rent; a refreshment stand with food and tobacco as well as a dance floor and playground with gym and croquet sets in the June 24, 1880 issue of the Henry Republican newspaper. During the spring and fall waterfowl migrations, Grubbs also offered his services as a hunting guide on Lake Senachwine. He continued to fish commercially on the Lake for the market and as a fishing guide.
Business was good for Grubbs, so he added more rooms to his two room home for boarders in 1881, but his success was short lived. In 1882, Robert Challoner was camping with his family at the Undercliff Resort. Recognizing the possibilities of Grubbs' operation, he urged the land owner, Sparling, to build his own hotel at the site. Of course, Challoner would become manager of the new 22 room establishment which opened in December of 1882 There is no record of Grubbs reaction to this change, but he and Amanda were not among the guests at the new hotel's grand opening which was the highlight of the social season in the surrounding counties of Putman and Bureau. The new Undercliff Hotel was a grand three story building with deep verandas on the first and second floors that became the social center for the surrounding communities attracting visitors from all over the States and Europe. One of the earliest Illinois organized hunting clubs, the Undercliff Sportsmen's Association leased hunting grounds from Sparling and part of the hotel for their clubhouse until the hotel burned down in 1914. This upstaging of Grubbs seemed to become a reoccurring theme in his business life.

After Grubbs lost control of his resort, he moved to Chicago to work for Oswald Von Lengerke, the 'V.L.' in V.L.& A., probably sometime between 1883 and 1892. He also worked in the sporting goods department at the Fair which was started by E.J. Lehman in 1875. One could assume Grubbs was making duck calls for these stores since he was producing calls commercially during this time. According to his own hunting catalog, Grubbs made the "first commercial duck call that was ever place on the market in 1868". Yet the earliest known published mention of the Grubbs call was in an 1889-1890 Montgomery Ward catalog which illustrated a metal-banded wooden duck call. There are no known examples of this call in collections. Several different styles of duck calls are attributed to Charles Grubbs that were marketed by various sporting goods stores and by Grubbs himself as late as 1928. Grubbs' calls range from a simple straight barrel to an elaborately decorated barrel with deeply ridged patterns finished off with a sculpted mouth piece. All of these calls utilized at least one metal band to reinforce the wooden barrel, usually where the stopper was inserted into the barrel, and were finished with a channeled tone board, German silver reed and wooden wedge block which has often secured in place. Bob Christensen's book on Illinois River duck calls has a detailed study of the various Grubbs calls and I recommend it highly for anyone who is interested in duck calls.

Grubbs continued to hunt waterfowl in the Hennepin Illinois area. Although he was not a member of the Hennepin Shooting Club, there were two sites named after Grubbs on the club's grounds; 'Grubbs Blind' at the northwest tip of Lake Senachwine and 'Grubbs Hole' at the southeast shore of Lake Hennepin. Grubbs was a good friend with several members and probably guided as a pusher at the Hennepin Shooting Club. Minutes from the first annual meeting of this club on December 10 1887 recorded a letter from Charles Grubbs was read to the membership. Unfortunately, there was no details as to the content of this letter. Could he have been offering his services?

Grubbs was actively involve in the formation of the Undercliff Sportsmen's Association which was chartered in 1902 and was among the charter membership. The Undercliff Sportsmen's Association leased extensive bottom lands on the west side of the Illinois River around Lake Senachwine and had a gentleman's agreement with the Hennepin Shooting Club for reciprocal hunting rights on there west marsh that boarded the Undercliff's grounds. The Undercliff Club was the forerunner of the present-day Senachwine Hunting Club. Knowing this one can narrow down the time frame when Grubbs left the state and set up his call making operation in Pascagoula, Mississippi since the club changed its name and offered new memberships in 1916. Grubbs' name was never among the membership under the newly named Senachwine Club.
Grubbs made his move to Jackson County Mississippi prior to the 1920 census which listed him as the head of the household including his single daughter, Alice who owned a restaurant in Pascagoula. The town of Pascagoula was the site of at least five different duck decoy manufacturing operations because of the area's natural abundance of tupelo gum and pop ash; two wood that are extremely buoyant and light-weight. What will interest collectors is that it was Charles Grubbs who initiated the Pascagoula decoy productions that would continue into the 1950's. An article in the Chronicle-Star, Pascagoula ( 12-22-1922) has credited "C.W. Grubbs has developed an important industry on the coast". This article describes how Grubbs started a decoy duck and duck call business with a pocket knife and three or four hand tools. At the time, he was operating a plant equipped with labor saving woodworking machinery under the name of the Grubbs Manufacturing Company.

Sometime between 1924 and 1928, Grubbs announced he had joined forces with the Poitevin brothers, Elwood and Eugene, who had a boat building and repair shop in Pascagoula and would be producing a new lightweight decoy. It is very likely Grubbs did this because of his advanced age. He would have been in his mid-seventies. The small magazine clipping that ran the announcement described Grubbs' as "a sportsman of many years of experience who knows ducks from bill to web. His new booklet on duck calls and other accessories for duck shooting is a result of a life-long study".
The Poitevins had learned the boat building trade at the local shipyard as young men. In 1905, they built a their own boat and went into the towing business with a fair amount of success. During World War I, the Poitevin Bros were called upon to aid in the manufacturing of war ships, but both brothers returned to Pascagoula to set up an establishment that would specialize in various types of woodworking and repairs around 1916. The Jackson County Business Review (791931) recounts how Charles W. Grubbs who "had for years been whittling these wooden ducks by hand and was exceptionally talented in the art" had joined the Poitevin Brothers Company and "subsequently increased the scope of the Poitevin plant". The report was very vague as to when and why Grubbs relinquished his association with the brothers except to mention that "blinds, hunting suits and other products were introduced". The Poitevin's "Singing River Decoys" were appeared to have been turned using Grubbs patterns. A Poitevin ad in the same Jackson County Review also pictured a duck call obviously designed by Grubbs.
Was he upstaged again? Probably. Soon after this he moved moved to Huston Texas and a new C.W. Grubbs Catalog of Sporting Goods was distributed stating: "We are in NO WAY connected with any company making decoys. WE ARE MAKING OUR PRIZE-WINNING DECOYS, CALLS,AND GRASS BLINDS in the above named city (Houston)" which confirms Grubbs may have been a victim of another take-over coup. His catalog offered Blue wing teal, blue bill, mallard and pintail decoys in two grades; No. 1 Perfection- made of corkwood, treated with linseed oil and given two coats of high grade paint, with glass eyes; $15.00 per dozen. No. 2 Perfection decoys were identical "but of a heavier wood at $12.00 per dozen. There are lathe-marked, machine-made decoys in several collections with "Grubbs" clearly stamped into their bottoms including diving ducks which were not mentioned in the Texas 1928 catalog. Grubbs also offered decoy repair services, sanding and repainting; one coat, $2.00- two coats, $3.00 per dozen. Pretty impressive for a man who was eighty years old in 1928!

Grubbs used a photograph of a pair of miniature mallards, a Grubbs' 'Perfection duck call' and a pair of mallard decoys with award ribbons from the 1924 Wild Fowl Decoy Exhibition, New York for his catalog and stationery logo. In his catalog, he claimed his decoys winners over 16 competitors. The catalog from this competition held by the Howell's Point Anti-duskers Society, Bellport, Long Island listed Grubbs Manufacturing Company, Pascagoula, Mississippi #153 in the machine made classification with fourteen other makers including a mistaken entry, Chas Perdew. In a correspondence with a customer dated 11/16/28, Grubbs again refers to being "the winners over all competitors".
Among his other products, Grubbs illustrated hunting blinds made of tough grasses from the salt marshes of the Gulf Coast that was woven with heavy cord and sold by the foot in three and five foot sections. He also fashioned grass suits with loops for ones arms that allowed the top half of the grass "blind" to fall away when one was ready to shoot. Charles W. Grubbs will always be remembered for the part he played in the history of waterfowling in the Illinois Valley and his calls will treasured as testimonials to a fine craftsman. Although his decoys did not have the quality that would set them apart from other carvers they established the Pascagoula Decoy, an entire line of inexpensive hunting blocks that would supply hunters with workable wooden decoys into the age of plastic decoys.

Given Mr. Grubbs contributions to the development of waterfowl hunting it is only appropriate that his resting place be marked with a memorial to honor his life.

The proposed grey granite marker will have a ceramic photo of Grubbs on the left and will read:

Charles William Grubbs
June 25, 1848
 August 18, 1933
Pioneer Duck Call and Decoy Maker