Bear Grease - Ep. 70: Holt Collier - Texas Cowboy, Gunfights & Market Bear Hunting, Part 2

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast we’re on part two in our Holt Collier series and looking into the second section of his life, from the age of 20 to his mid-60s, which were defined by gunfights, cowboying and bear hunting. Holt was a former slave turned confederate soldier, he was acquitted of the murder of a white man after the civil war, and he made a lot of money as a market bear hunter in the primeval swamps of Mississippi. Holt was buddies with presidents, governors and outlaws – he became an accomplished cowboy in Texas while running from the vigilante justice of those that wanted him hung. Holt was married three times, was a deputy sheriff, his best bear dog was named Mandy, and he had a baseball team named after him. And, he guided President Teddy Roosevelt on the hunt that created the global icon of the “Teddy Bear” (we’ll talk about that on episode three). We’ve interviewed author, Minor Ferris Buchannan who’s written the only book about Holt Collier, Hank Burdine who acts as a guardian of Holt’s legacy, and Jonathan Wilkins – an African American outfitter in the Delta. You wouldn’t believe Holt’s story if it wasn’t the truth, he’s surrounded by controversy and irony, but one thing is for certain – he was an extraordinary and brilliant man and his legacy deserves to sit with the kings of American culture. We’re in search of learning who this man Holt Collier was and I really doubt you’re going to want to miss this.  Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. Said, you see that pony over there in that corral? Said, if you can ride that pony, that we'll give you a job. And about that time, all those cowboys around there heard what the straw ball said,

and they turned around snickering and laughing. Ain't nobody been able to ride that horse. That's the one horse and the whole remuda that nobody could ride. So, Holt said, I can ride it. On this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, we're on part two in our Holt Collier series, and we're looking into the second section of his life from the age of 20 to his mid-60s,

which were defined by gunfights, cowboying, and bear hunting. Holt was a former slave-turned Confederate soldier. He was acquitted of the murder of a white man after the Civil War, and he made a lot of money as a market bearhunter in the primeval swamps of Mississippi. Holt was buddies with presidents,

governors and outlaws. He became an accomplished cowboy in Texas while running from the vigilante justice of those that wanted him hung. Holt was married three times. He was a deputy sheriff. His best dog was named Mandy, and he had a baseball team named after him.

And he guided President Teddy Roosevelt on the hunt that created the global icon of the teddy bear. We'll talk about that on episode three. Holt Collier lived an incredible life. You wouldn't believe Holt's story if it wasn't the truth. He's surrounded by controversy and irony. But one thing is for certain.

He was an extraordinary and brilliant man and his legacy deserves to sit with the kings of American culture. We're in search of learning who this man was. So I really doubt you're going to want to miss this one. After about 15, 20 minutes, Hulk come walking back in that hard just as gentle as he can be. He said, that's pretty good a horse now. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant.

Search for insight in unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. When I started my research, there was this legend of Hulk Collier. So I started my book as a novel. And I wrote, I don't know, 12, 13 chapters, worked on it for like a year and a half. That's a year and a half work. And I've got a good plot line. I got this thing going, you know.

I think I've got a good book going. And then I realize, you know, all it's, it's a novel. And it's based on fact, but it's fiction. I woke up one morning. I realized all I'm doing is adding to the legend by writing a historical. historical fiction on Holcoyer. Because nobody's going to believe this. Nobody's going to believe what I'm writing here.

Because it was true. It's all true. But I was given dialogue, that kind of thing. And so I took that to the manuscript and I threw it in a trash can. I'm going to write historical fact. So I wanted to write a book that people would read and there would be no question that this man existed, these life events that he experienced, It happened.

The life of Holt Collier is unbelievable. Fiction couldn't rival the facts. An author Minor Ferris Buchanan of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1990s, realized that. His book titled Holt Collier was published in 2002, and after 13 years of research before it was published, it impacted a lot of people. I've heard about Hulk Collier all my life. I never knew that much about it. about him until minor's book came out. There was a black gentleman in town named John Johnson.

John Johnson was an 80-year-old black man. He's one of the best friends I ever had. I shan't say my major domo, but he was, I never went anywhere without John Johnson. And John Johnson would tell stories about the old days growing up in Granville, and he knew Hope Collier. And yeah, I was 40 years old, and he was 80-something years old. Oh, wow. And he ended up being the best man in my wish.

And John knew Hope Collier and remembered Hope Collier seeing him And seeing the little kids coming by there and crawling up getting up on his front porch Wanting him to tell stories and Holt would tell him to go down to the tour down And get him an arm to knee high and plug it back on and they'd bring him back and he'd go tell him tories So those were some of the things that I knew and had heard about Hulk Collier That was Hank Burdine and before miners research Holt's story was en route to be lost. But after his five-year-old daughter quizzed him about the origin of the teddy bear,

he began a research project that would define more than a decade of its life. And luckily, some of the people who actually knew Holt were still in the Greenville area. Minor captured the last remaining firsthand knowledge of Holt, like a kid scooping tadpoles out of a drying mud hole. In episode one of this series, we made it through the first 20 years of Holt Cawyer's life. Just to get you caught up and refreshed, here's the stuff we've learned. Holt was a black man born and slaved to the Hines family in Mississippi in 1846. The Hines were politically powerful and wealthy, and Holt worked directly for Hal Hines as his hustler, taking care of horses, hounds,

and hunting for the plantation. Holt began to set himself apart by killing his first bear when he was only 10 years old. A few years later, boldly rejecting the wishes of Hal Hines, Holt runs away to join the Confederate Army at the age of 14 and becomes an accomplished soldier in the 9th Texas Cavalry, a roving horseback unit involved in guerrilla warfare, covert raids, and dispensing backwards justice to union sympathizers. Holt's involvement in the 9th Texas branded his life,

evidenced by his habit of brandishing firearms and wearing his Confederate hat with the bill flipped up most of his life. The idea of a black man fighting in the Confederate Army is a complicated story. And on part one, Jonathan Wilkins introduced us to the idea that Holt's situation was very complex and that race relations dominated his life, though he navigated them seemingly with ease. But if you remember, things got wild when Holtz's situation was very complex and that race relations dominated his life, though he navigated them seemingly with ease. But if you remember, things got wild when Holt kept shooting folks after the war. Holt shot a white man in defense of his former slave owner, Howell Hines, which sounds wild, but he got off without any charges pressed. Secondly, he was accused, tried, and acquitted in a military tribunal for the murder of Captain James A. King, a union officer and member of the Freedman's Bureau who was stationed in the South after the war.

This is almost unbelievable based upon what we know about the time period. However, this is where the magic of Holt's life, evidenced in uncountable ways, is seen so strongly. Holt was special and engendered the trust of those around him, overriding the dominating racial norms of the time. Holt was represented in his trial by the best lawyer in Mississippi, the Grey Eagle, William Alexander, Percy the first. Now we're in a new sector of Holt's long life. He lived to be 90 years old. And wouldn't you know it? It starts off with some more killing. Here's Minor Ferris Buchanan with a wild story. We're skipping one major story about Holt, and that is the 1881 gunfighted Washburn's Ferry. A fellow named Sage, who was originally from Waterford, Mississippi.

Mississippi, which is close to where I'm from, he was a kind of a renegade deputy sheriff from over in Louisiana. It killed a couple of prominent young men in their early 20s. And he crossed the river, came over into the Mississippi Delta to hide out. And as Holtz going out to start his season, he's leaving Greenville, he's loaded up his provisions in his wagon. And the sheriff comes to him and tells him, Holtz's fellow, this out-of-all-sage from Louisiana, we think is hiding out. keeping out for him. He's a white man. Holt, who served as a deputy sheriff before,

because they knew him to be very dependable and a good shot. He takes that seriously, and as he's going into the wilderness, there's a river up there called the Bokeflaia. Sometimes it's low, sometimes it's high, depending on the weather. But right there is Washburn's store, and he has a ferry service.

So it's called Washburn's Ferry. And his Holt rides up there in his wagon with his mule, he sees the man that fits the description of this sage character. And on his horse, and there's Washman standing there talking to him. Now, Holt realizes this is Sage, and he's got to come up with a plan. He can't just walk up to him with a gun drawn. He acts kind of friendly, and Washburn, it makes the introductions. He says, that's a fine-looking Winchester rifle you got there.

You're mind if I look at it. His purpose is to disarm this fellow. And Sage says, sure, you look at it. And he hands him the rifle voluntarily. And Hope puts the rifle down, leans it up against the porch, and immediately says, you're under arrest. And Washburn's standing on the porch. They're all pretty close together. And even though Washburn knows hold, I can only assume it's two white men, one black man.

And Washburn picks up that rifle and passes it over to Sage who's on the horse. And Sage immediately comes down to aim the gun at swings it on hold. Swings it on hold, puts the muzzle on him. And the barrel of the gun hits that horse right between the ears. And if you know anything about horses, that's a very sensitive spot. And the horse rears up just enough for Holt to pull his revolver. And literally, gunfight. Holt shoots the guy right through the chest.

The man falls dead on his back, a cocked rifle in his hand. and there's a coroner's inquest that's as far as it goes. I'm sure the sheriff came and testified at the coroner's inquest, and Hope was exonerated and found not guilty. So he never even went to court for that? Well, the only court he went to was what's called a coroner's inquest. The coroner makes the initial determination, whether it's a homicide, justifiable or otherwise.

And he said self-defense. We don't have that report, but I know it was a coroner's inquest. And Hope went on bag in the woods and continued hunting. And that article, that's 1881. Now that's after Reconstruction. We no longer have Union Soldersdown anymore. And that killing of a white man by a black man in Greenville, Mississippi, out in still the wilderness back in,

raised the ire of a lot of people, enough that it made the newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi. And the headline was White Man killed by a Black Man. That's a fine-looking Winchester rifle, Holt said, before he took the gun and drew his pistol. that's nervy. The gunfight at Washman's Ferry took place in 1881,

and it is the third man that Holt has shot or allegedly shot since the Civil War ended. And we just learned another new thing. Holt was a deputy sheriff in Mississippi for a while. But now we're going to go back

to 1866 to where we left off after the trial in Vicksburg when Holt was acquitted of the murder of Captain James A. King. Holt's friends have some advice for him if he wants to live. They had a meeting right there on the courthouse grounds where William Alexander Percy and Howell Hines and other prominent people from Greenville, Mississippi, said, Holt, if you come back to Greenville, we cannot protect you. Because James A. King was, according to everything I've been able to find, was much beloved by his men. We're talking about an arch—there's a garrison of several hundred union souls.

soldiers there. And if Holt goes back to Greenville, he's going to be strung up. So as luck would have it, some of the Texas boys that Holt had ridden with were still around. They hadn't gone back to Texas yet. And they were there. And they said, well, Holt, come on out to Texas with us. You can ride with us. And we'll give you a job. You're good with horses. And so that's what he did. What good American story doesn't mid-plot have the good guy slash outlaw? law fleeing to Texas. No way Minor could have made a flashy fiction story better than the truth. Here's Hank Bredine telling how Holt got his first job on a Texas ranch.

Did I mention in the bullet points about Holt's life in the first episode that he became an accomplished Texas cowboy? No, I didn't, but he did. When Holt got back to Greenville, they were on him. He was acquitted, but they were going to get him anyway. And word got to, Holt said, Oh, you need to just get out of here for a little while and let the smoke clear.

You know, so Holt decided to go to Texas, where his partners were. So he gets out, John, and he goes and sees Saul Ross. And Saul says, yeah, we can find something for you to do out here. And so he sent him out in the planes to a couple of crew out of China. Said they'll probably give you a job. And Holtz's a little wiry, not a big, bulky kind of guy. So he comes out there, and none of these guys, in this outfit.

They don't know it. They don't know it. Well, there's a bunch of these old cowboys out there, probably all of them white. Now, there were a lot of black cowboys out there at the time, so I can't say that there weren't any in that crew. So he goes out there and sees the straw boss and says, I'd like to have a job, says, well, son, you know anything about cattle and horses?

He said, yes, I know a little bit about horses and all. He says, well, I'll tell you what we'll do. Said, you see that pony over there in that corral? He said, if you can ride that pony, said, we'll give you a job. And about that time, all those cowboys around there heard what the straw ball said, and they turned around snickering and laughing. Ain't nobody been able to ride that horse.

That's the one horse and the whole remuda that nobody could ride. So, Holt said, I can ride it. He said, saddle him up. So they caught the horse, and they got the saddle on them and got them sent stuff tight, and this horse is just going crazy. So the next thing Holtz asked for is a pair of six shooters. loaded. The rest of the cowboys

jumped behind trees. Yeah, they don't know where he's going with this. They have no idea where he's going with this. Hought Khoot Noe,

because Houghtnou bought horses. So they gave him the guns, and he strapped them on, and he grabbed that horse's reins. The first thing he did

was run those reins around that saddle horn and all been pulled that horse in there, if you know anything about horses, he pulled that horse's head all the way around

the way it dead gone near touched that saddle, saddle. Well, when a horse is like that, he can't buck. He can't do much of nothing, but just run around in a circle. And when he did that, Holt jumped up on that horse. And the second his butt hit that horse's saddle, he turned that range loose and let it slip through his fingers, and the horse took off, and on the first buck he made, Holt pulled a pistol and pye-ow. Well, at that shot, that horse took off running. And then he slowed down enough, started bucking again, Holt shot again.

Every time he'd go to Buck, Holt would shoot up in the air. And the next thing they know, Holt was running out through the planes, shooting that gun, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. Says after about 15-point a minute, Hulk come walking back in that hard

just as gentle as he can be. He said, that's pretty good horse now. You know, when I read that story, I was like those cowboys. I had no idea why he asked for six shooters, but it makes perfect sense what he was doing. He said, when a horse is bucking, that's when you get thrown off.

but he knew he could ride that horse if it was running. That's right. He's like, yeah, the horse might buck me off if it just stands here in Bucksford. Oh, yeah. He said, but if that horse is running. He can't. And he noted that it was a treeless area. I mean, he said it was just vast and wide open.

And so what a story. These things, I think, are important. To me, they are. That story was recorded. I mean, Hulk Collier told that story. That's the way he told it, which is so interesting. And anybody that knows something about horses, I've shot off a horse and got bucked off after I shot before. That's after I threw my gun down too.

I'm a sucker for a good rough stock ride and an unlikely cowboy gaining the respect of the super punchers. How has this story not been made into a movie? We explained it, but Holt wasn't sure he could ride a bucking horse, but he knew he could ride a running horse. so he shot to make the horse run, not buck. And you ain't no cowboy if you don't know that trick. Try that one off for size Dale Brisby. For the record, Hank mentioned that Holt stopped by to see Saul Ross,

who was one of Holt's former commanders in the Confederate cavalry, who had later become the 19th governor of Texas and president of the college Texas A&M. Holt was basically in the Who's Who Club, or the post-bellum south. Here's Minor with yet another odd overlap of Holt's life. And Holt went out to Texas to the area of Titus County, Texas. I would read all this stuff in my research,

and I just couldn't believe it until I corroborated with another source. And I corroborated everything except one item. He says in Texas he met Frank James, of the Jesse James gang. and I was unable to corroborate that, but then I did my research on the James gang, and sure enough, when they would take a break out of robbing people in Missouri and Arkansas, and they would go down to this area of Texas during the same period of time.

It's possible that he met. But he said, well, why would he tell a reporter I met Frank James? That's just such a random fact for him to do. So I believe it. But I never was able to, you know, to, solidly corroborated. Frank James.

He was the older brother of the notorious outlaw, Jesse James, and Frank was involved in at least four bank robberies. The only reason I doubt this story is I figure of Holt had found him he had killed him or hog-tied him and turned him in for the bounty. Frank was the secessionist for Missouri and fought for the Confederacy and the Civil War before he became a criminal. Interestingly, in 1882, five months after his first time, his brother Jesse James was killed, Frank James made an appointment with the governor of Missouri

to turn himself in. This was back when hardened criminals had some nobility and drama. He's quoted as saying to the governor as he handed him his pistol, quote, I've been hunted for 21 years, have literally lived in the saddle, have never known a day of perfect peace. It was a long, anxious, inexorable, eternal. Vigil." End of quote. Anyway, Holt said he met Frank James and Minor and I believe him. And for any of you traveling through Waco, Texas, here's something for you to go see.

And we don't know a lot about the two years he stayed out in Texas, except we know that he went out there and he stayed on a ranch with his guys he knew and he rode with. And Saul Ross, who had been the commander of the night, Texas cavalry, as luck would have it. And there's a wonderful work of art in Waco, Texas. It's the largest, as I've been described to me, as the largest bronze work of art in the state of Texas. It takes up several acres, and it's 10 or 12, head of Longhorn cattle.

They're all at one in a half size, and then they're three cowboys. If you know your history of Waco, Texas, all these cattle drives would go through Waco. somebody came up with that deal, let's build a bridge, a big wide bridge and charge a dollar ahead for these cattle. So the city of Waco started making a lot of money. The bridge is still there.

It's a wonderful spot. But they said, let's build these bronze longhorns and these cowboys to herd these cattle across this bridge. And somebody out there had read my book. And they made a significant contribution for this project. And his only consideration was, I will contribute the money. as long as you make one of these cowboys, Holt Kuyer.

So they did. Looks just like Holtz, wearing his Van Dyke beard, got his hat turned up in the front. But you wouldn't know it was Holt, but if you look at, I think it's his left heel, and carved into his left hill,

it says Holt Cawyer. There's a bronze statue of Holt in Waco, Texas. I like it. Post a picture and tag me on Instagram if you're down there and you see that statue. This was done in modern times, and Holt would have never known anything about it.

I'm torn when I learn about these guys that live their whole lives without many public accolades, and then after they're dead, they make statues of them. I'm not saying it's wrong. It's just a shame that they never knew. Such as life, I guess. Well, let's pick back up with Holt's life in Texas. He only spent about two years out there, and remember, he's running from trouble. Holt is out in Texas.

He's working as a cow hand on one of these ranches. Word comes to him that his mentor, former master, Howell Hines, has been killed in a knife fight in Greenville, Mississippi. We already know Howell Hines is a scrapper, but in this situation, he's with a friend in a bar, a restaurant in Greenville. Now, Howell has never taken the oath. He's got friends who've taken oath. You've got to take the oath to get your voting rights.

back to become a citizen again. And oath back to the United States? Every Confederate who he's got to take an oath of loyalty to the United States. And then he's restored to all his civil rights. Howell Hines never does that. And he gets into an argument with Dr. Blanton, who's a member of one of the founding families in Greenville, who had taken the oath and they get in an argument. It's just like, I guess, left and the right argue today.

And I'm sure alcohol is pretty significant. involved and Howell tries to break up a fight. Howell's in the middle of it, of course, but at the moment this happens, he tries to break up the fight and Blanton, who's already pulled out a knife, goes to stab the other guy and he stabs Howell Hines. Howell dies in agony after about three days, I'm sure, infection said it and all that kind of thing. He passes away word somehow gets out to Texas and the whole carier immediately leaves.

He doesn't waste any time. He's coming back. He's going to find Dr. Blanton. He's going to kill Dr. Blanton. He's got revenge on his mind. And Holt comes back to Greenville, Mississippi, and guess what? Dr. Blanton has left town. He doesn't come back for six years because he knows Holt.

And Holt's reputation is well known in the community. Holt has now come back to Greenville, Mississippi, and he's dead set on avenging his former slave owner, Hal Hines, who was killed by this Dr. Blatton. But a woman steps in to advocate for the dock with Holt. She's known as the mother of Greenville. Here's Hank. After the Yankees burned Greenville down during the Civil War, everybody came home, folks that had lived here, moved out in the country,

living wherever they could stay out, John. And then the engineer that laid out Vicksburg, they got him to come up here and lay out the streets. for New Greenville. And Ms. Blanton gave the land, that's why she's called the mother of Greenville, and gave the land for the new greenville to be built back. And it was after the doctor and Howell Hines got into that,

that Holt knew what he had to do. He had to do something again. And yet Ms. Blanton asked him not to and hope, let it go. He was going to go kill the doctors. Is that right? Because he killed our lives. And so she said, don't kill him. And he said, okay, because he respected this lady.

After a while, Ms. Blanton got to hold and asked him not to have retribution. And he respected what she said. And he respected it. And that's what he did. Holt Collier respected the wishes of the mother of Greenville, Ms. Blanton. Interesting stuff. Is it integrity when you honor a man's wife who politely ask you not to kill her husband? and you decide not to?

In an odd way, it seems like it is. But we're going to get back to the story. Holt's now back in Greenville to attend to Hal Hines' funeral and to show mercy to Dr. Blanton, but he's found himself in danger once again. Here's Minor. So here we are. It's 186970,

and the South is still under reconstruction. Those same men who had served under James King are still occupying Greenville, Mississippi. And when they learn Holt is back in town, they arrest him. And they charge him again with the killing of James King, even though he's already been found not guilty. It has to go through somebody to get the charges dropped and get him released. He gets arrested again.

Multiple times he gets arrested. And I think every time he's arrested, there's a certain element of exposure there because he could have been lynched. You remember when I told you it's a wonder Holt, lived to be 90 years old. He's only now in his early 20s, and he's evaded many scrapes with death. And these won't be the last. In the first podcast, I dropped a bomb that Holt hunted with President Theodore Roosevelt,

which we'll talk about in episode three. But here's where we're at. He's been acquitted to the murder, and the verdict made it unsafe for Holt to be in Mississippi, and he had to get the heck out of Dodge. Here's Minor with one of the most mysterious story. about a confession that Holt made. But right now we don't know that Holt killed the man. We don't know Holt killed James A. King until 1902 is the first time he ever confesses.

To anybody. And who did he confess to? Theodore Roosevelt. How do we know that? One of the members of the 1902 Hunt wrote an article about the hunt. And in that article, he gives one paragraph to the fact that Theodore Hunt. Roosevelt pressed Holt Coyer to tell him whether or not he had killed James King. And in that article, he says, Holt admitted to killing James King, but that's another story for another article.

Now, he said, he said he killed him. This is what he said. He said he killed him in a duel in the cane break. But that's a story for another article. And, of course, it was never written. If a living person admits to a murder, there's no, there's no statute of limitations on murder. How would that work? We're moving forward to 1902 when he makes this confession.

The killing took place in 1866. On this hunt, at the moment around that campfire, when Hulk Collier is telling Theodore Roosevelt, yes, I kill James King in a duel in the cane break. Another participant standing right next to him is Leroy Percy, who was William Alexander Percy's son. So his dad was the lawyer? I don't know what transpired around that campfire, but I like to think Hope Carrier refused to tell Theater Roosevelt what happened. And this is a fact. He says, until he asked Leroy Percy, would it be all right if I told the president of the United States? And Leroy Percy told Holt it's okay to

tell the president. And he told the president, again, all we know is what he told him was his duel in the cane break. I'm sure he gave him more details. But in my imagination, I like to think, that Theodore Roosevelt said, I'm going to give you a pardon. I got to hear what this story is. You know, you've got a president. He's able to give a pardon. It's actually maybe the safest man he could tell the story to. If he knew he had favor with it.

Theodore Roosevelt followed Holt around the campsite asking him questions. Because, you know, Theater Roosevelt was this great huntsman, adored other huntsmen, you know, who, according to everybody who's on that hunt. They talked about how Theater Roosevelt followed Holt Collier around, He was the most, he's the guy that Roosevelt most respected out of all those guys. Well, you know, Roosevelt had a Confederate connection. He had two uncles that served in a confederate. And his mother was from Georgia.

Theodore Roosevelt was drawn to hope. There's no question about it. And he wanted to know what happened in James King. And he wasn't going to leave that hunt without, no. You're sitting around a fire, campfire. This is four or five nights. And you're telling these tales. You're sharing experiences.

Just loose things loosen up. I wish you had more details. Yeah. But I don't doubt it for a minute that it was a duel in the cane break, just like he said. When I came out with the book, I initially had used the word murder. And one of the editors read it, and I said, wait a minute, mind it. We don't want to portray Holt as a murderer, do we? Do we know that? And I said, well, I guess I didn't think about it when I used that term.

And he says, well, what do we know about to kill it? I said, all we know is it's a duel in the cane break. He says, well, that's what you need to put in there. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a pool of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit.

Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he was. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together.

He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. The duel and the cane breaks. It's wild to me that a national publication would have printed a murder confession in their paper, but nothing was ever done about it.

Holt wasn't pardoned by Roosevelt because he'd never been convicted. It's a mystery, but the article was never refuted by Holt or the Perseys that we know of. It must have happened that way around that campfire. However, we're getting way ahead of ourselves by like 30 years, and it's stressing me out. The best way to ruin a good story is to cut to the punchline too quick. My wife Misty knows about that. It's my pet peeve. And the Roosevelt Hunt is the punchline, which took place in 1902.

So let's go back 30 years to 1870. So, Holt has left Texas and is back in Greenville, but has found it an inhosponsor. hospitable place to chill, so he turns to something he's always loved and been good at, bear hunting. So he realizes at that point, he needs to get out of town, and what does he know how to do best? He knows how to hunt. Now, here we are, it's several years after the Civil War. You've got timber people who've moved in.

You've got new people coming in. You've got railroads being, you've got a significant labor force, and they need to be fed, and you still can't have livestock because it's still flooding every year. And it's primarily timber. I mean, this is almost naturally the Delta would be almost 100% timber. All wilderness. I mean, the amount of ground that has been cleared for cultivation is minuscule compared to the amount of wilderness it's out there. So there's a lot of hunting to be done.

There's a lot of feeding to be done. People willing to pay money for animal carcasses. And so Holt has a brother named Marshall who has a little stable in town. and Marshall puts him up in a wagon and he goes out, I'm going to guess October, November, and he'll go hunt and fill that wagon up full of meat, bring it in and sell it, go out and sell it. Essentially market hunting. I mean, that was a big, big part of market hunting in the South would have been here that time.

If there were a railroad crew working on site, he'd ride up with a wagon full of meat and sell it to them. They looked forward to it. He wasn't the only one doing it. I mean, but so you got whole. This was a professional, legitimate profession. Legitimate profession. and bear meat was a big ticket item. And Holt started this about 1870, and this was his career.

When he was not hunting, he was helping his brother Marshall out in the stable. Or in the springtime, he would follow the fares. He'd get on a train, go down to Florida, go out to Texas. He would live like Howl. He taught him to live, a big gambler. I think he liked the ladies, and he spent all his money. And there was even one time, one of the Metcass, somebody had to send him some money to get back because he'd spent it off.

In about 1870, Hulk Collier becomes a market hunter, primarily for Black Bear in the American jungle that was the Mississippi Delta. At this time, not much of Mississippi was developed, and vast sections of it were basically virgin wilderness. Another interesting thing is that Mississippi was settled west to east, which is opposite of almost every other place in America, because the access point was the Mississippi River on the western edge of the state.

We introduced Jonathan Wilkins on the first episode. Here he is talking about the wild place Holt was about to make a living on. If you start thinking about a place that is thick and lush and green, and there's all these different things that can hurt you and sting you and bite you, and you've got alligators, and you've got poisonous snares, And then it's also the realm of this version of charismatic megafauna that we no longer even associate with those regions. Right. Like we think of black bears now as mountain creatures.

But for so much of their existence in North America, they were also swamp creatures. So you're dealing with something that's, you're dealing with a place that, you know, I would say tantamount to like the Everglades as far as like how thick it is and the richness of life. and also the hazards that can be present. Here's Hank describing the Delta. The Mississippi Delta was the last alluvial floodplain, hardwood bottom land to be cleared in America. And it was covered with bear. It had more bear per square mile than any other place in America.

And it was great sport for hunters to hunt bear. And it was a good source of meat, of course. This was the last of the bottom land hardwood forest. All of the pine and whatever up in the eastern seaboard had been cut out. They'd gone out into the great forest and the northwest, cut all that stuff out. You couldn't get in down here because there were no railroad, there were no highways. There were no levees down here at the time. Yet we had oak trees and cypress trees and sycamore trees that were 20 and 30 feet in circumference,

12, 15 feet in diameter, huge things. This American jungle was the backdrop of Holt's life as a hunter. I want to read a couple of excerpts from miners' book, Holt Collier, to learn something about his bear hunting. It's wild, but the Delta South has an incredibly rich history of bear hunting with hounds. Here are the deets about Holt's market hunting and why he did what he did. he did. This is from the book, Hulk Collier. Quote, In these prosperous circumstances,

Hulk Collier recognized an opportunity to earn a living without having to pick cotton or work in the fields. An abundance of wild game and Collier's knowledge of the vast wilderness made him well suited for an occupation as a professional hunter. Mississippi whitetail deer was a prime source of meat, and it was plentiful and considered an easy kill. Deer meat was not as much in demand as the meat

of the black bear. Deer were small and sold for only 30 cents per pound field dressed. A fully grown bear could earn a hunter $60 or more. End of quote. That's some major money. Here's some more from the book. Quote, with the passing of years, Hulk Collier's reputation as a bear hunter grew until by the turn of the century it had reached heroic proportions, at least on a local level.

He averaged about 125 kills a season and kept a book count of more than 2,100 kills into the book burned in his brother Marshall's house in 1890. Collier earned more than $900 in one season and was known to have as much as $2,000 in his possession at one time. These were phenomenal amounts of money for a black man in the Mississippi Delta and more than most people earned in a year. When not on the hunt, Collier led what could easily be described as a cavalier lifestyle. He indulged in the one vice that haunted him his entire life, gambling. It is apparently from several sources that he never drank alcohol. At the annual spring fairs, he played poker and pharaoh and wagered heavily on horse races. In the summer, he enjoyed playing baseball.

In 1877, he financed the team that received local attention, It was named Holt Collier's Club from Deer Creek. Following the hunting season every year, Collier traveled in any direction and to any destination that suited him. He sometimes went to West Texas and followed the spring fairs. He went south to the racetracks and fairs of Louisiana. Most years, he would return home penniless. His friends urged him to save money, settle down, and buy some property for a house.

Collier did not heed their warnings. He preferred to live in the swamp or with friends while storing his meager belongings at the Greenville stable and at the home of his brother Marshall. The spring immediately following his most successful years, Collier was wealthy by Delta standards. With $2,000 in his pocket, he went north to follow the seasonal races and local fairs, much in the same manner as he had done with Howell Hines in the prosperous years before the war. Collier was confident that he knew horses and could pick the winners. He took the train north but soon discovered that a free African American with cash had different appeal to the northern philanthropist. He fell victim to the experienced gamblers who stripped him clean and he had to telegraph home for railroad fare.

This routine was an annual ritual for Collier. Quote, in the spring I'd go away and follow the races same as I used to. St. Louis and Saratoga and New Orleans and way out in Texas taking in the fairs. Then in the fall I'd come home, get my dogs together, and hit the cane break again. And I just naturally loved a horse and loved to hunt bears. Didn't do nothing except hunt, end of quote. The yearly loss of his hard-earned money had little effect on the unregimented sportsmen. It was not his desire to be domesticated, and he had little,

used for money in the swamp. His life revolved around his dogs, the hunt, and his frolicing around. End of quote. In an article, Holt was later quoted as saying, quote, money don't buy nothing in the cane breaks know how. A man's dog don't care whether he's rich or poor. End of quote. That's a pretty philosophical statement. And in this, we learn a lot about Holt. But I'm probably most surprised that he had a baseball team. Were you expecting that? Anybody that is hunting bear with hounds is going to be a houndsman. And here's something that he said about his hounds that confirms it. Quote, my dogs would fight a bear three or four days and nights until they almost starve to death waiting for me to come. Often found him the third to fourth day tree

in her fight. Me and them both has lived off of raw meat and not cared whether twere cooked or not. End of quote. Holt believed his dogs were the best that ever lived, and that's what a good houndsman is supposed to think. Here's an excerpt for Miner's book on bear dogs. Quote, a successful bear hunter relied heavily on his pack of mixed breed dogs to chase and corner the brun.

It is said that a bear dog belongs to no particular breed, that he is an accident, and that of a large number of such animals only one. one might be found that takes to a bear. Hulk Collier once described Mandy, the most reliable dog he ever owned. She had been badly cut by a bear once, and afterwards she would hunt only deer wildcat.

But when old Mandy would come in and got right between my legs, I knowed it was a bear, no mistake. Mandy never guessed wrong about a bear, not one time. James Gordon explained that there were dogs of varying sizes in each pack. A few rough-haired terriers, active and plucky, that can fight close to the Bruin's nose and dodge under the cane when pursued. Some medium-sized dogs to fight on all sides, and a few large, active curs to pinch his hindquarters when he charges in front or crosses an opening in the woods. End of quote. That's some incredible stuff, and it's really interesting to me to see the heritage of hunting with hounds that there is in Mississippi and all throughout the day.

Delta. Here's Minor with more on Holt's hunting career. 1870 to 1902 is 32 years. Holt is credited with having killed over 3,000 bear during that time on his hunting exploits. Now, I came up with the line that's more than Daniel Boone and David Crockett combined. I think I'm on target there. I may not be right, but I think I'm on target. Yeah. Because Daniel Boone and David Crouty, if you read their biographies, they're not in the woods as much as holy. He had 32 continuous years in the woods.

And it was well documented in the sense that the whole kept the ledger at his brother's stable. It ended up getting burned up so we don't have it. I think that's an important fact. There was a ledger that had 2,100 bears. It went up to 2,100, then it got burned. Yeah. But I can give him the 3,000 count, without any question. because when Theodore Roosevelt wrote about this hunt,

he gave Holkeye a credit with having killed over 3,000 bear. He gave him a credit, and I'm not going to take it away from him. Holt had a long career as a market bear hunter, but rarely do things stay the same when you're dealing with natural systems and people. From 1870 to about 1890, bears were plentiful, and he sold the meat, hides, and bear grease, and made some really good money doing it. However, by 1890, the land was being developed, bear numbers dwindled, and they only remained in the remotest regions of Mississippi.

Market hunting and habitat loss were significant for the black bear, and it's interesting that the same thing, roughly in the same time period, was happening in Arkansas. His hunting had to change. It's also interesting and sad to me to see the similar trend with many great American hunters like Daniel Boone and And Holt. These guys start with a baseline of robust game populations like D.B. and Kentucky, but by the time they're old, the game is scarce. I wonder if Holt was sad about the demise of the bear. I'm certain that he was. This was the old order of North American hunting before Theodore Roosevelt and many others

helped usher in what we now know is the North American model of wildlife conservation, which has been massively successful for managing big game populations and preserving habitat. I'm certain Roosevelt's time in the Delta with dwindling bear population pushed his then radical ideology about conservation forward. And I'm very glad that it did. Maybe Holt had an influence on him. I bet he did. Holt was good at making things work, so he shifted his market hunting business to a sport hunting. outfitting service, which didn't take as many bears to make a living. Here's Jonathan with an

interesting aspect of using black guides in the South after the Civil War. Again, he's meat hunting, scouting, all that kind of stuff, doing this work that he's, you know, got years and years in and has built his reputation as being very good at. And that leads him to becoming, like, a professional hunting guide, especially, you know, in the post-bellum where there was this, there was this of strange dichotomy of like residents of the north coming down specifically for hunting recreation and specifically to be guided by black guides because that was kind of part of the narrative and the story and the quote unquote romance of the southern experience but you know he ends up doing well for himself before we get further let's fill in some gaps about holt's personal life

in 1880 when holt was 34 years old he was recorded as being married to to Rose Collier. Very little is recorded about their relationship, but they did have three children together, Effie, Maggie, and Coley. Not much is known about this family, but by 1890, Holt wasn't with Rose anymore, and he was married to Maggie Phillips,

also of which not much is known, but she wouldn't be his last wife. There was a divorce, and in 1904, when Holt was 68 years old, he married 26-year-old Francis Parker. She is recorded by those who record stuff like this as having exceptional beauty. Anyhow, Holt would remain married to this woman until her death in 1931 at the age of 44. And in the next episode, I'll tell you how many children Holt Collier had.

You'll be surprised. But there we go again, getting ahead of ourselves, and yep, it's stressing me out. we're still in the bear hunting era of holt's life here's Hank telling the time holt almost died in a log while bear hunting now did mind to tell you about the time that holt almost died up in the tree no holt was on a hunt with several of his buddies he always hunted with his friends and he was chasing a bear and a bear ran up he may have already gotten on the bear with his knife and i think the bear broke loose and ran up in a huge hollow tree that was falling down. And a lot of times, lightning would strike these trees,

and there'll be a big open cavity down the middle of the tree. And the tree had fallen down, and the bear ran up in the hole in that tree. Well, the dogs went up in there. Well, Holt ran up in there, and the bear was killing his dogs. So Holt goes up in there, pulling his dogs out. When the bear decides enough of this, he's coming out that tree.

So he runs by Holt. Holt's down in the log. Holt's in the ground. Yeah, the log, the tree laying on the ground. And Holt goes up in there to get his dogs out, and the bad aside he's going to come out. Well, then the bar passes Holt. As Holt is jugging him with his knife,

and then gets a little bit halfway to the opening, and lays in there and dies. And it's hot, and he begins swelling up. Well, Holt can't get out. There's no knot hole for Holt to climb out of him. He's in there with his dog. It's the dog, Holt, and the bear. Okay.

And the bear comes to buy, and the bear dies between Holt and the end of the tree. Well, the bear starts swelling up, and Holt can't push a 250-pound barrel out of the tree. He'd been to die. Of course, Holt had got him all coming by him. Well, thank goodness some of his guys was close by enough. to try to figure out where a hold was and either heard the dogs

or found the dogs and realized that that bear was up in that tree and they pulled that bay out and then he'll come home. A hole would have died up in there. Yeah. Would have been no way to get out. Holt said that that was the most dangerous moment in hunting that he could recall in his life. That's correct.

He said that he thought perhaps it would have been in the dark, but maybe he could have cut the bear up piece by piece. and moved it behind him. Yeah, I mean... Can you imagine that? Now that's a wild story and would have been a harrowing way to die. Hulk could have been on Meteor's Campfire Stories

Close Call's audiobook. You should check that out. I tell a story about almost drowning, but that's not what we're talking about. We've covered some serious ground on this episode. We've learned a lot about Holt's life from age 20 to age 64, but we still haven't talked about the most famous portion of his life when he guided Theodore Roosevelt.

But that's coming in part three. As we close, I want to ask Miner about his motivation for writing this book about Holt Collier. He gave a compelling answer. So I know, just from talking with you, like your research on Holt is fueled from a respect of this man that you never knew, but you you i can answer your question i know where you're going why what does this mean to you and why do you i grew up in marshall county mississippi working on a farm this is in the 1950s and 60s during the civil rights era and i knew a lot of really proud black men that i worked with they didn't have much education but they had a lot of pride and they had a lot of intelligence and i

looked up to them and i respected them i can name you a ton of them Roosevelt Yarborough, Elvis McKinney, Butler Young, Aaron Jones. These people, most of them have been dead 40 years. It was almost like they had this story, it's untold. And I just, I just, Nat Brooks, who's who's, was to Holly Springs, what Hokkaia was to Greenville. But, you know, Jim Crow just held these people back. He just held them back.

And I just always had this immense respect for them. They were all poor, but they were all proud. And when I had the opportunity, when I found this, and I thought, oh, my gosh, you know, here's a guy who, you know, he had money in his lifetime, but in his elder life, he didn't have much money. But he had a lot of respect for the community. And these people I'm talking about had respect from the community. But because of where we lived and the climate, racial climate, they just never could really prosper. and their story needed to be told. And when I had an opportunity to tell a whole carrie's story,

I kind of took that, which I had been raised with as a child. I mean, Lewis Jones worked with me. We used to get up cattle together. We'd mended fences together. I spent as much time with him. I knew his philosophy. And I love the man. He died in his house fire, you know.

His story has never been told. But the fellow I worked with over in Warren County, one of the smartest guys I ever knew. Crippled with polio. The name was Jesse. I don't even know his last name. That's all I ever knew was Jesse. But he took a part of Caterpillar D4 and put it back together.

And I helped. I was just a kid helping him. I was handing him to the wrench, you know. I'll tell the story. It's way off targets. It has nothing to do with Hulk Carrey, but this guy, Jesse, it's one of the funniest stories. We're over in Warren County.

My uncle's farm. My uncle says, Miny, you're going to be Jesse's helper for the next few days. he's going to fix this Caterpillar D6. I didn't know what I didn't know what was wrong with it. We tore that motor all the way down, put it back together. He said, get up there and push that button. Push that button, start up.

Ran like a sewing machine. And so my uncle's out, tending to other business. And we're sitting there putting tools up. And I said, wait a minute, Jesse. And I looked down there as a bucket, and it's full of nuts and bolts. He'd come out of that motor. It hadn't been put back. I mean, it was three or four pounds of these nuts and bolts.

And I said, Jesse, wait a minute, you can't. We got to put this stuff back in this motor. He says, you put that down, don't say anything to your uncle. I just save your uncle $5,000 for the repair. And puck it over in Jackson would have charged him $5,000 to make the repair. And they'd have had two buckets of bolts. And when he said they'd have had two buckets of bolts, I thought to myself, that's an intelligent man.

The story of Hulk Collier is one of the most intriguing American stories I've ever heard. It's the tale of a man overcoming a broken system designed to keep him down and him finding a way against all odds to thrive. It's an inspiring story, a challenging story, a tragic story, but also a story worth celebrating. Like I said in the beginning, I doubt any of us will ever forget who Hulk Collier is and we haven't even got to the best part of his life. And our third episode will cover his life from age 64 to his death at age 90 in 1936. What an incredible life. And I feel honored to even be able to tell his story. I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease.

I spoke with Minor Ferris Buchanan and he says he's got some Hulk Collier books still available to be ordered directly from his website, www. Hulk Collier.com. They're super expensive on Amazon, but you can get them directly for Miner at that website. Check that out.

And hey, do me a favor. Make a social media post this week about this podcast series. Leave us a review and share the Bear Grease podcast with a friend. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker.

I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag, and there was a full of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper,

from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. woods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, iHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.