For more than fifty years, the carving partnership of L. T. Ward & Bro. of Crisfield, Maryland created waterfowl decoys and decorative bird carvings that established and maintained a unique standard of realism and artistic expression. Stephen Ward (1895-1976) and Lemuel T. Ward, Jr. (1896-1984) were makers of hunting decoys until the early 1950s, when the introduction of plastic, factory-made hunting decoys and a growing collector demand for their realistic carvings prompted them to switch to the production of miniature and life-sized decorative birds.

Crisfield, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, was literally created by the seafood industry. Located on a marshy peninsula, the town was built on a base of discarded oyster shells and prospered when the railroad and steamship lines became available to carry the town’s rich harvest of seafood to eastern cities.

Market hunting of waterfowl was not as widely practiced around Crisfield as it was in the upper Chesapeake Bay, and those Crisfielders who hunted for the market used methods that relied less on large spreads of decoys like the elaborate gunning rigs of the upper bay. Thus the typical round-bottomed upper bay decoy never became established in the Crisfield area.

With the outlawing of market hunting and the increasing numbers of sport hunters in the early 1900s, a distinctive style of decoy carving developed in the Crisfield area. These decoys were flat-bottomed, often oversized, with a nicely carved head that exaggerated the bird’s characteristics. The overall effect was a very lifelike decoy that was highly visible and rode the water like a duck, quite differently from the upper bay decoys that rolled and danced to the movement of the waves. One of the pioneer carvers of the Crisfield school was L. Travis Ward, Sr. (1865-1926), the father of Lem and Steve.

Both Ward brothers were barbers by trade, as was their father. Neither Lem nor Steve worked as a waterman or hunted commercially, but both were avid fishermen and hunters. Their close observation of wild birds is reflected in the realistic form and painting of their decoys. Other hunters of the time could not understand why the Wards would allow ducks and geese to alight among their decoys and swim around while they studied their shapes and color patterns.

Decoy making for the Ward brothers started about 1920 between customers in the old barbershop near Asbury Church, and gradually moved to their home workshop as their decoy business increased. The Depression years of the 1930s brought an increase in the demand for their decoys as more people hunted simply to feed their families. When better economic times returned, a growing interest in sport hunting, especially at the gunning clubs that flourished on the waterfowl-rich marshes and islands of the Bay, provided a demand for their decoys from hunters who could afford the best. Many clubs sent their decoys back to the Ward’s shop annually for repair and repainting.

Lem Ward was an innovator, always experimenting with new styles and paint patterns, perhaps to confound those who would copy his work, but mostly to satisfy his desire to create a more lifelike bird. Lem made a few decorative carvings as far back as 1918, but the change from making working decoys to consistently creating decorative pieces did not come until the 1950s. Steve Ward is often credited with doing most of the decoy carving and Lem with most of the painting, but this tends to oversimplify the close working relationship between the two brothers who formed a unique carving partnership.

Lem and Steve Ward had no training in art; their life in Crisfield isolated them from other artists. Neither of them owned an automobile, preferring to bicycle into town to shop and socialize. The inspiration for the carved and painted waterfowl that they created came from their keen observation of the birds that they knew so well in the surrounding marshes and waterways. Ward Brothers decoys can be generally categorized into five carving periods.