Bear Grease - Ep 72: Holt Collier - The Teddy Roosevelt Hunt, Part 3

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

This week on the Bear Grease Podcast, we’ve got the third and final episode in our series on the extraordinary life of the former slave, confederate soldier, bear hunter and Mississippi native, Holt Collier. Many believe he deserves to sit in the saddle with the greats of American history, but his life is stacked deep in controversy, murder, fortunes won and lost, and unrivaled adventure. We’ve tracked all the data points we have on Holt, but like boar bear pursued by hounds, he’s difficult to course. This episode is dedicated to his famous Teddy Bear Hunt where he guided president, Theodore Roosevelt, AND we’ll discuss Holt’s lasting legacy. He lived in bold opposition to the trends of the age – he was a black man that overcame, endured and thrived in the South in a dangerous period, but even in the midst of victory, his life leaves us with a tragic aftertaste. The story of Holt’s life exemplifies core Bear Grease, it’s the finest renderings, the choice meat of the akern, the flash of the flashiest mule, the crescendo trill of the barred owl, it’s the black panther of all black panther stories and I’m honored to tell it to you….I doubt you’re going to want to miss this one. 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. Ultimately, you're dealing with a person who, because of the circumstances of his birth, should not have had the influence and impact that he did. And he did so because he refused to internalize all the messaging about who he was from outside. This week on the Bear Greece podcast, we're on our third and final episode in our series

on the extraordinary life of the former slave, Confederate soldier, bear hunter, and Mississippi native, Holt Collier. Many believe he deserves to sit in the saddle with the greats of American history, but his life is stacked deep in controversy, murder, fortunes won and lost, and unrivaled adventure. We've tracked the data points we have on Holt, but like a boar bear being pursued by hounds, he's difficult to course. This episode is dedicated to his famous teddy bear hunt when he guided President Theodore Roosevelt and will discuss Holt's lasting legacy. He lived in bold opposition to the trends of the age.

He was a black man that overcame, endured, and thrived in the South in a dangerous period. But even in the midst of victory, his life leaves us with a tragic aftertaste. The story of Holt's life exemplifies core bear grease. It's the finest renderings, the choice meat of the acorn, the flash of the flashiest mule, the crescendo trill of the Bard Al. It's the Black Panther of all Black Panther stories, and I'm honored to tell it to you. I doubt you're going to want to miss this one.

And when he rides in the camp and he's got his bear tied to the back of his horse, he said, did the president kill that bear? And he says, no, but if he'd followed my instructions, he would have. 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. He lived his life from day one all the way through as somebody you took seriously. White men sought him out in the deep south in that time frame.

White men sought him out. Not only white men, but the president of the United States. And Holt took him on two hunts, not just one hunt. If there's one thing we've learned about Holt Collier, it's that he was a man to be taken seriously. On this third and final episode, for any of you hillbillies who are just getting here, here's a summary. Holt Collier was born a slave in Mississippi in 1846. He fought in the Confederate Army. He killed two white men and shot another one after the Civil War, but wasn't

convicted. He worked as a cowboy in Texas. He served as a deputy sheriff. He gambled like a sailor. He never drank a drop of alcohol. He had three wives and at least 14 children, which I hadn't told you yet. He had a baseball team named after him. He was incredibly loyal to his friends, and he had close relationships with men of great power. And he spent 36 years as a professional bear hunter in the Mississippi Delta. But his life wasn't all guns and roses. The backdrop of his life was the systemic racism of the day. Holt lived amid undeniable racial hierarchy,

even though many were trying to remedy the human tragedy of slavery and its generational wake of destruction. I don't know how we got here, but this is just where we've been found in the midst of the dirty story of humanity. And Holt's life is of great interest for examination and inspiration. Man, do I love this story.

So Holt has been a professional market bear hunter since 1870. We learned that on episode two, selling meat to hungry labor markets in the South. But in 1890, he'd be able to, became a sport hunting outfitter. In 1902, Holt was 56 years old. Here's our old friend, author Miner Ferris Buchanan, who wrote the only book on Holt Collier called Holt Collier, and he's going to introduce us to the famous 1902 Bear Hunt with President Theodore Roosevelt.

So he starts out doing this, and he does this for 30 years, until finally in 1902 when Theodore Roosevelt is wants to go on a, on a Delta hunt for a black bear through certain contacts with the Illinois Central Railroad, contact to Leroy Percy, LeRoy Percy, recommend so they finally get whole car he's going to lead this hunt. That's, in addition to the hunting experience he had prior to 1870, he had 32 years of experience. He knew that Delta better than anybody. And what's hard for us today to envision was the reputation that the South had for bear hunting with hounds.

The reason Theodore Roosevelt even knew about that this house was. hunt existed was because in the 1890s, there were many magazines and publications that talked about southern hunting. And Theodore Roosevelt read them all. And he wanted to go on a deep south black bear hunt more than anything. More than he wanted to go to Africa. He wanted to go on one of these hunts insisted on it. So he comes down in 1902 by train and they have a five-day hunt. Holkawyer, when he killed his first bear, right outside of Greenville, he was 10 years old. He shot it off of the back porch. That would have been 1856.

By 1902, when Theodore Roosevelt comes down here to hunt, Holt can't find any bear in Washington County. He's got to go all the way down to Sharkey County, 45, 50 miles away. He's got to go way out into the wilderness on the Sunflower River, 14 miles due east of the railroad track. It's a very difficult place to get to. And that's where the hunt took place. So by the turn of the century, they had killed out a lot of bears.

Killed out a lot of beer. From the market hunting. Through market hunting, and by then, you know, the area had been settled. You had railroads in here by 1902. I think recreational hunting had taken a lot of as well. The early 1900s were a grim time for North American wildlife and old ursus Americanaus wasn't exempt. They were pushed to the remote interiors of their range. Roosevelt was keen to the diminishing southern black bear in this unique style of hunting.

and he wanted in before it was gone. Roosevelt had been on a transformative journey on his ideology of wild places and wild beasts. In 1883, he went on a bison hunt in Montana, and it was said, quote, that he danced enthusiastically around the buffalo to celebrate his success. End of quote.

This was after he'd killed the buffalo. But on a later bison hunt in 1889, when the herds dwindled to exchange, extremely low numbers, he wrote, quote, For several minutes I watched the great beast as they grazed, mixed with eager excitement of the hunter, was a certain half-melancholy feeling as I gazed on these bison, themselves part of the last remnant of a doomed and nearly vanished race.

Few indeed are the men who now have, or evermore shall have, the chance of seeing the mightiest of American beasts in all his wild vigor, surrounded by the tremendous desolation of his far-off mountain home. End of quote. Roosevelt exemplified the irony of the hunter's heart. He was compelled to pursue and kill these animals, but a deeper priority and conviction to save these beasts in their habitat arose. In the end, Roosevelt's radical conservation ideology proved to be an act of what some people have called American genius.

where an animal has cultural value to the common man through hunting, that animal and his habitat will be preserved. This has worked for the last 120 years, and our prayer is that it will continue to work. We all live in the wake of Teddy Roosevelt's boldness. That's some deep water to wade through this early, but I bet you a possum tattoo that holds stories of the dwindling Mississippi black bears

fueled Roosevelt's desire to protect wildlife. Here's Hank Berdine, our buddy from the past several episodes, telling us about Roosevelt arriving in Mississippi. It's real close to Smead's Landing where Roosevelt got off the train. This was a secret trip. The first time they planned it, Roosevelt afraid was going to turn into a picnic. So he canceled the first trip and was able to put together another one and came down on Mr. Sizzling, Illinois Central Railroad train, got off at Smead's Landing, ready to hunt. hunt, ready to go. And there were newspaper reporters that were there that were not allowed to go out

to camp, which was 10, 15 miles inland into the swamp. One or two of them was allowed to go. And there was about a whole carload of Secret Service, policemen, protecting the president. But when they got there and they got ready to go, Holt said, no, no, no. I'm going to be in one in charge taking care of the president of Roosevelt, said, he's safer with me than with all the policemen in Washington, D.C. So they all stayed at the landing. So it was right close. And Roosevelt and Holt just took off into the wilderness together. First thing Roosevelt said to Holt Cawyer, he came off of that train and went straight to that black man in his hunting gear with his hand outstretched. And he said, you must be

hold, I haws you as a great bear on them, and they shook hands and were the closest to friends from that point on. It was said, quote, were it not for his high brow and the distracting brilliance of his smile, Theodore Roosevelt would unquestionably be an ugly man. He had small ears, heavy jowls, large, wide-spaced eyes of pale, and he wore rimless glasses. His most celebrated feature were his dazzling white teeth. Even an ugly president in 1902 shaking a black man's hand wasn't normal.

It might have been a savvy political move, but I believe Roosevelt was just being a normal human, honoring another human that he respected because of the fruit of his life. Roosevelt would send Holt Christmas cards and personal letters multiple times over the years. He would later give Holt a gun as a gift. On the first night of their hunt, Roosevelt instructed everyone to call. him Colonel Roosevelt and dropped the president. He was a socially progressive leader and he took some heat from some sectors of the press for hobnobbing with a former slave. Later in his presidency, Leroy Percy, who is on this hunt, would consult with Roosevelt at the White House about how

Percy planned to effectively rebuild the South and give social ladders to the blacks and vehemently oppose the rising power of the Klu Klux Klan. This gives you some insight into the kind of men that Holt considered friends. This was more than a bear hunt, though he was genuinely there to kill a bear. I think Roosevelt wanted himself to be seen giving honor to a man of African descent. Here's Minor with the details of the hunt that would become known as the teddy bear hunt. Roosevelt is going to go 14 miles out onto the banks of the little Sunflower River where he's going to stay for five days.

The President of the United States is going to disappear, literally, disappearing to the ozone for that length of time. And the press, they want to go out there to be on the campsite with him, but they won't allow that. In fact, they armed several black men to cordon off this hunt site, and they wanted to go, but they were denied. So they had to find a place to stay. So any newspaper report will have to be sent out by telegraph.

And the press are allowed out to the hunt site. Certainly once a day they get to interview people and whatnot. We need to understand the players on this hunt, and the press is a major player. It's important to understand their role because they would be communicating with the country eagerly watching their president every single day. A second player was Holt's favorite feist dog. Here's Hank introducing them to us. Holt's favorite dog was a little squirrel dog, a little feist dog named Jocko.

Probably didn't weigh 15 pounds. He could not run with the big dogs because he wasn't a big dog. He wasn't a trailing dog or anything like that. He's a little feist dog, he's a little squirrel dog. But Holt adored him, and he played an integral part, and every bear Holt killed the only Jocco was around. And the way that Holt would do it, you don't just run into a bough that your big dogs are on with a knife, because that bear is going to grab you.

Well, when your bear bade, after your trailing dogs had bade the bear, and the bear turned around, as a ride, boys, it's over now. We've been to fight this out. And the dogs, catch dogs, some of them would go in and attack the bear. That's when Holt would turn Jocko loose. Jock was carried on his saddle in a little burlap bag. with a string tied around it with Jocko's head out. And he was tied around the saddle horn.

Jocko saw all the action. He knew what were going on. And when Holt would turn Jocko loose, and these are in Holt's words. Jock would run in and carry the bear. He would run around and bite the bough on one side, and the bear would turn over to that side, and then he'd run over on the other side and bite the bear on the other side.

and while Jocko was harrying the bear, Holt was running with a knife and stab him in the heart and kill the bear. And that's what happened. That's how they hunted. Jocko sounds like quite the companion. Killing a bear with a knife wasn't just a macho feat, but it was an effective way to dispatch a bear without accidentally shooting a dog, which is a real problem when a bear is being bade by dogs on the ground.

This might be hard to understand, but in bear hunting, the dogs, are of highest priority. Bear hunters, to this day, would take a bullet for their dogs. Here's Minor telling us about the hunt. The very first night,

Roosevelt is all about Holkeyer. He wants to know all about Holt. He served in all these wonderful stories. And I think that's when Holt confesses to him that he had killed James A. King in a duel in the cane break. And then he wants to know about the hunt in the morning,

what are the plans? Now, Roosevelt did not want to sit on a stationary stand like deer hunters do today. All the articles that had been written about bear hunting were chasing the bear on horseback, being entangling the briers, tooting the horns and calling. Yeah, real active hunting. Through the swamps, he wanted to be on the chase. And his hosts, however, were a great deal more timid than he was. They were afraid that we don't want a president to get hurt on one of our hunts.

So the plan was the very next morning was for Holt to put Theater Roosevelt on a stationary stand, which was basically sitting on the log. So the fellow who accompanied Theater Roosevelt to sit on that log was a guy named Hugar Foot. And they're sitting out there, and there's a log. There's a slew of water, small pond. Immediately on the other side of this slew is a stand of cane. And there's a game trail right across from the log. where it's obvious.

Jaguars come through there, cats, dogs, whatever is out there. Wolves, bear, come through that, and they come to the slew to drink. Well, Collier puts Roosevelt and Hugo Foot on this log and gives them specific instructions not to go anywhere. He and his dogs are going to chase a bear. First they've got to pick up the scent of a bear,

then they've got to follow the bear, and then they got to... So they hear Holt, and he tells them, you'll stay right where you are. I'm going to track a bear. I'm going to chase the bear, and he's going to come right out of that game trail hole, and they came. And I'm going to bring him back to this slew.

That's exactly what he does. It just takes a lot longer to do than they had anticipated. They sit there on that log, and they hear when Hokkaio picks up the trail of the bear. They hear the dogs. And they hear them go up north, and then they hear the bear, and the dogs go south. And then they hear them go back north again.

They can't see them, but they know they're in the distance, maybe a quarter of a mile away, maybe half a mile, somewhere between them and the Little Sunflower River. Holtz doing everything you can to keep that bear from getting to the little Sunflower River. Doesn't want to cross the river, doesn't want to drink from the river.

And then it goes all the way south until it's so far away. Hugar Foote says, that bear must have crossed the Azoo River. They actually think the bear has gotten away from Hope. And about that time, they're getting hungry. They put out on that stand. about 8 o'clock in the morning, it is now new.

They're hungry, and Holt told them not to leave, but they left. They ride back into camp to get a sandwich or something to eat, and as luck would have at about the time they leave that stand, Holt turns that bear around, and about the time Roosevelt has eaten a sandwich, Holt's got that bear heading right to him. And he's behind that bear, I don't know, 100 yards, 200 yards, and instinctively, Holt knows where he is,

and instinctively he knows that bear is popping his head out into that slew about right now, and he does not hear a gunshot, and he immediately senses what has happened. The president leaves the stand early to head back for lunch. I believe Roosevelt was a tough hunter, and he might have stayed there if it weren't for his host. Roosevelt had pleaded that the hunt numbers stay small. He had written to his friend John Parker, quote, In short, my experience is that to try to combine a hunt and a picnic generally means a poor picnic and always means a spoiled hunt. Every additional man on a hunt tends to hurt it.

Of course, I am only going because I want to hunt and do see that I get the first bear without fail. End of quote. Roosevelt was adamant that he'd be the first one that killed a bear and he wanted to keep the hunt small. Anyway, it really didn't turn out that way, and it turned into more of a picnic, and the president would forever regret it. Here's Hank talking about Holt's log. Well, when that bear broke out right at that log where the president was supposed to be sitting and the president wasn't there, it perturbed Holt pretty bad. Well, the dogs were on the bear, and the bear started mauling the dogs. and Holt had been told that the president kills the first bear.

No one kills the bear before a president does. Or the colonel, as President Roosevelt asked to be called. Well, the bear was killing his dogs, and Holt knew he had to do something. So he turned Jocko loose. And when Jocko ran into Mali, the bear reached nine and grabbed little Jock and was mauling Jock. And that is why Holt clubbed his. his gun and ran in because if he were to shoot the bear he might kill Jocko his favorite dog. He clubbed his gun and ran in screaming, barely go my dog, barely let go my dog.

And he swung in an arc and hit the bear at the base of the skull and basically cracked his skull. Stunned the bear, the bear dropped Jocko loose he had already killed Jocco and fell back into the water. I hated to do that to you. I tell my children that owning a dog is basically planning for a sad funeral. They will die and it will be sad. So Jocko is now dead and he wouldn't be if the president had been there. And Holt ain't happy.

Let's step back in time two minutes to when Holt had just clubbed the bear with his rifle. And I want to say that this bear story was told this way by Holt as recorded by the press. This wasn't an exaggerated story told 100 years. later by people who didn't know him. And this bear was an older boar, weighing 235 pounds, and was said to be bone skinny, and he was six foot seven inches nose to tail. That's a really good bear. Here's minor. And the bear stands up, according to Holt, I was looking straight up at him. He was at least two feet taller than me. And I had the gun in my hand, but I couldn't shoot it because the barrel was bent. So he reached.

retreated back to his horse and got his quote unquote Texas rope that he had been carrying with him all these years and he lassoed that bear and pulled it took all the slack out on a will of tree and had him had the bear tethered we know it broke his skull cracked his skull because we still have the skull really yeah that skull is still it's in the smithsonian institution and uh it's been examining it's got a crack And at any rate, Collier ties his bear to a tree. It ain't going anywhere because he's tied real close, real short line. And he sends a couple of men to the camp, go find the president. Get him, well, about that time, you know, pretty quickly,

the president comes riding up with Huger Foot and all the other hunters are all gathered there. And they say, Mr. President, shoot your bear. Shoot that bear, tether to that tree. and Roosevelt thinks about it for a second. He knows those reporters are going to be coming into camp that evening, and if the word goes out that he shot a bear that was tied to a tree, it would be devastating. He just wouldn't stand for it.

So he refused to shoot the bear. The skull of that bear is in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. with a cracked skull. Now, that is wild. 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 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. 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. I want to say a word of defense for my brother Teddy Roosevelt. No doubt he calculated the press in not killing the Tide Bear. But Roosevelt played a vital role in articulating the ideas of Fair Chase developed by his Boone and Crocket Club. Here's their definition of Fair Chase. Quote, Fair Chase is the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit in taking of any free-ranging wild game animal

in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper or unfair advantage over the game animal. End of quote. Shooting a tied bear is not fair chase. Now, on the other hand, using dogs, however, is emphatically fair chase. It's hard to kill game using dogs. I'm just saying,

don't be knocking, hunting with hounds. Hunting with dogs is so foundational to the human experience that saying it's ethically wrong is like knocking the legs off the chair that you're sitting in. My, oh my. I'm now climbing off my soapbox and walking back over to our story. Here's Minor. John Parker was on this hunt.

Now, John's an interesting fellow. He was from Louisiana. He was born and raised in Mississippi, but he later became governor of Louisiana, was theater Roosevelt's vice presidential candidate when he ran the second time as a bull moose candidate and uh he was a scrappy fellow he wrote he didn't stay on the stand he rode behind the whole the whole time so they mr president killed this bear and uh he he refused to do it just absolutely refused to do it john parker stood up says he'd volunteer and he wanted to kill a bear in in the old fashion way the old hunter's way where you lance the bear with a knife stab the bear of the knife and the way it's described

and everything I've read is you stand on one side of the bear and you stab the bear in the chest or in the heart cavity from the other side. On the opposite side. On the opposite side, because the bear is going to, if he has an opportunity to strike or bite, he's going to bite where that... From the direction of the pain.

From the direction of the pain. So you better not be standing there. So you need to be standing on the opposite side of the bear. Well, Roosevelt happens to be carrying this dagger. It was more like an Arkansas toothpick. Tosses it down to John Parker and said, here, use this. Well, Parker hit a.

rib or something just made the bear mad this is holt telling the story and he and he really resented because now the bear was mad enough now he's mad or even madder and now the holts the one who's going to have to dispatch the bear which he does and that's pretty much the end of it holt puts the bear on the back of his horse rides into camp uh Roosevelt and park and the rest of them now they they don't have the dogs they don't they're not hunting but now they hunt anything and they just boys in the woods so to speak but holt goes back in the camp And when he rides in the camp and he's got his bear tied to the back of his horse, he said, did the president kill that bear? And he says, no, but if he had followed my instructions, he would have.

He says this to the press. He says this to the press. And he didn't realize what he was saying. It's pretty bold statement. Well, I know, and the press ran with it. And it was on the front page in every newspaper coast to coast that not only had the president failed to get his trophy bear, He had done it by failing to follow the instructions of this lowly guide who doesn't even know how to read right. So Holkeyeyer in 1902, as I say, becomes the first man of sportsmen of African descent to have national recognition.

And that's before Jack Johnson. Holt didn't know what he'd done, but he'd leaked the details that would forever etch him into history, because the press ran with the story of the Tide Bear. Well, it got so much news coverage that it wasn't just the news coverage. Clifford Barryman, who was a well-known cartoonist, picks up this event, and he does a cartoon about it. And it's called Drawing the Line in Mississippi, and it's drawn up in the Washington Post on November 16, 1902. I've talked to a lot of historians. I've read a lot of articles about this.

Nobody can come up with the explanation for this title. But at this point in time, there's been a debate every year in the United States of Congress for an anti-lynching legislation. And it never passes. Now, look at that cartoon and tell me if you can see how that would be material to an anti-lynching. So the picture is a man with a bear roped around the neck. A white man with a black bear and a rope around his neck. And then the president has his... Drawing the line in Mississippi.

And President has his back turned to that with his handout. So is that saying that Roosevelt never passed the law? What would that be saying about now? All I'm saying is there's some misconceptions here. First of all, the man with a rope around the bear's neck is white. This would have been a whole crier. It should have been a black man. That wouldn't have fit the narrative of anti-lynching.

And then basically theodore of Roosevelt saying I'm drawing the line in Mississippi. I tend to think that this has anti-lynching connotations around. Be that as it may. Clifford Bearman continues to use the teddy bear in his car. Anytime he has something about Roosevelt. He puts a bear in there. He puts a little bear as a comic relief in a political cartoon. Before the teddy bear, the comic relief in any theater of Roosevelt cartoon would have been a raccoon.

A raccoon. Bearman started the teddy bear. When did he actually call it the teddy bear? The teddy bear didn't pick up the name until it became a toy. So it was later. So, well, it was very soon after this.

So the bear, Barryman made the bear comic relief in political cartoons about Roosevelt. Right. And later, it would be commercialized and turned into a children's toy called the tape bear. There are multiple things happening at this point in time.

So you got Bearman doing it. You got other cartoonists start doing it. But soon after this happened, a toy maker in New York decides he wants to make a toy and he wants to call it the teddy bear. Well, the legend is that he contacted Roosevelt and said, we want to call it Teddy's Bear, and that Roosevelt gave them permission to do that.

None of that correspondence has ever been found. That's the story of the Teddy Bear, and 120 years later, the name for a small stuffed bear is as strong as ever. And when you get down to its roots, the grit, nerve, and ingenuity of Holt Collier created it. Here's how the 1902 hunt ended because they kept hunting. And again, they hunt all over the place. They ride and range for long distances.

And they kill three bear on this hunt, none of which are killed by Roosevelt. But in the community hunt, like this would have been considered, anybody that gets the big game, it's considered a success for everybody. But Roosevelt didn't pick up on it. And so he resented it, but he says, I'm coming back to the South. next year and we're going to get us a trophy bear. Well, it ended up being five years. Roosevelt would return in 1907.

However, a lot happened on this five-day hunt. Holt confessed to killing James A. King, and he told Roosevelt how many kids he had. Remember I was going to surprise you with the details of this? Here it is. And Roosevelt actually wrote this in a letter to a buddy about Hulk Collier. But Roosevelt asked Collier if he had any children. And Holt started counting on his fingers and said, I've got 14 children.

Roosevelt acted astonished, and Holt said, no, sir, no sir. All of them ain't my wives. She had two, and the balance I got just frolicking around, end of quote. Here's another interesting look into Holt from the recordings of the hunt. Judge Jacob Dixon, who was there, wrote of the conversations around the hunt. the campfire. He said, quote, every night we set up laid around the fire, black and white, a large company of us, and were regaled with hunting and fishing stories, illustrative of the days before, during, and after the Civil War. With the exception of the famous Robert Eager Bobo,

Collier had killed more bear than any man in that country. He was a good raconteur in a quaint, homely, sportsman-like way, and by his vivid and intense descriptions, aroused and sustained, unflagging interest. End of quote. Holt was a magnetic yet humble man. Here's the short version of Roosevelt's second bear hunt in the Delta in 1907. It involves another famous bear hunter. And it wasn't until 1907.

First of all, this hunt, the second hunt, his host was John Parker down in Louisiana. And he arrived there on a riverboat. And this was a 14-day hunt. And they invite Holokai. And Roosevelt insists on having Hope Carrier on this hunt. The Holkeye is there at Roosevelt's a specific invitation. But Ben Lilly, who's a pretty famous outdoorsman at the time, John Parker gets Ben Lilly to be the leader of this hunt in 1907.

Famous bear hunter with hounds. Famous bear hunter, you know, goofy old coot, according to Roosevelt, and a religious fanatic. and somehow the metcalfs from Greenville come down. The metcalfs and hope were real close. They were real tight. Long story short, after two days they decided there aren't any bear in the area and they move to a place called Bear Lake.

They go down to Bear Lake and they hunt for 12 more days. Roosevelt never gets his bear. Ben Lilley stays in charge of the hunt that whole time. Until finally, Metcalfs and Hope Colliers are talking to the side and the metcalfs are convinced that Roosevelt just needs to put Hokkaia in charge of this hunt. He'll have a bear. So they go over there and they make that suggestion to him. And Roosevelt bites.

And he says, okay, Mr. Lilly, I'm sorry, but we're going to put, we're going to give Holt. I'm only here for one more day. And we're going to let Holt have his chance. So they put Holt in charge the very next morning. And Holt, it's really kind of funny when you think about it. He looks at the president and says, you're going to ride with me. You're no child. They've been putting him on a stand all these days.

Yeah. And he says, you're going to ride with me. You're no child. You can handle this. And so he did. And he got, finally, he got to hunt in the true hunter fashion that he wanted to by following the dogs, chasing the bear on horseback. And sure enough, they got a trophy bear, a larger bear than the one that they had killed in 1912. That's why you had that card from Roosevelt to Holt saying, thank you.

So he was very appreciative. So he finally got his bear and Holt was the hero. The hole was the hero. Ben Lilly was an incredible and eccentric hunter who deserves his own Bear Grie series. But this time, Holt and the Metcalfs hit the home run. Roosevelt would say, quote, he'd never met a man so indifferent to fatigue and hardship as Ben Lilly. Here's what Roosevelt would later write about Ben Lilly. Quote, the morning he joined us in camp, he had come on foot through the thick woods,

followed by his two dogs, and he had neither eaten nor drunk for 24 hours, for he did not like to drink the swamp water. It had rained hard throughout the night, and he had no shelter, no rubber coat, nothing but the clothes he was wearing. And the ground was too wet for him to lie on, so he perched in a crooked tree in the beating rain, much as if he had been a wild turkey. But he was not in the least tired when he struck camp, and though he slept an hour after breakfast, it was chiefly. because he had nothing else to do, inasmuch as it was Sunday, on which day he never hunted nor labored. He could run through the woods like a buck,

was far more enduring and quite as indifferent to weather, though he was over 50 years old. He had trapped and hunted throughout almost all the half-century of his life, and on the trail of game he was as sure as his own hounds. His observations on wild creatures were singularly close and accurate. He was particularly fond of the chase of the bear, which he followed by himself with one or two dogs. Often he would be on the trail of his quarry for days at a time, lying down to sleep wherever night overtook him. End of quote.

I now want to read you what Roosevelt wrote about Hulk Collier and the Metcalf Brothers. This is from Miner's book, quote, Late in the evening of the same day, we were joined by two gentlemen to whom we owed the success of our hunts. hunt. They were Messrs. Clive and Harley Metcath, planters from Mississippi, men in the prime of their life, thorough woodsmen and hunters, skilled marksmen, an utterly fearless horsemen. For a quarter of a century, they had hunted bear and deer with horse and hound, and were masters of the art. They brought with them their pack of bear hounds, only one, however, being a thoroughly staunch and seasoned veteran. The pack was under the immediate control of a Negro hunter, Holt Collier,

in his own ways as remarkable a character as Ben Lilly. He was a man of 60 and could neither read nor write, but had all the dignity of an African chief. And for a half century, he had been a bear hunter, having killed or assisted in killing over 3,000 bears. He had been born a slave on the Heinz plantation, his father and an old man when he was born, having been the body servant and cook of old General Hines, as he called him,

when the latter fought under Jackson at New Orleans. When 10 years old, Holt had been taken on the horse behind his young master the hines of that day on a bear hunt when he killed his first bear. In the civil war, he had not only followed his master to battle as his body servant, but acted under him as a sharpshooter against the union soldiers. After the war, he continued to stay with his master into the ladder died and had then been adopted by the METCaths, and he felt that he had brought them up

and treated them with the mixture of affection and grumbling respect, which an old nurse shows toward the lad who has ceased being a child. The two METCafs and Holt understood one another thoroughly and understood their hounds, and the game their hounds followed almost as thoroughly. End of quote. We haven't said a lot about the METCafs, but they were as close of friends as Holt.

ever had. Here's Minor with the icing on the cake of the presidential bear hunts. So it was clear that Roosevelt had a ton of respect for Hulk Collier. He corresponded with him. He ended up giving him a gift. This is a great image. And I know that your listeners can't see the images, but there's a photograph here in January of 1908, Roosevelt sent to Hulk Collier. Yeah. Model 1886, 45 Winchester as a gift. And he sent one to Clive Metcalf and he sent one to Harley Metcalfe, who were both on that hunt. Yeah, so there's a picture.

There's four men, Colier in the middle. They're all holding guns. There's two little kids holding guns. There is a live black bear at the feet. CUP. But there's also presumably bear dogs standing around unleashed. Those boys are being raised properly. I love that picture.

That picture is taken in the front yard of the house that I met Jane Weathers in. She's one of the first people I interviewed. She was 95 years old. I mentioned her earlier. And she's one who filled in a lot of, she knew Hope. She was a young woman, not a child. She's a young woman when she knew Holt as an older man. And she was there when that picture was taken.

But that bear cub, she tells me, she remembers when Holt caught that cub. I'm going to give you the full circle here. bookends. Holt caught that cub and brought it into those boys as a pet. As that coat grow bigger, grew bigger and bigger, and they cage it and they couldn't cage it anymore. So when they've got to be too big to manage, they contacted the Memphis Zoo and said, we've got a bear for you. And it became the first bear at the Memphis Zoo. The same bear exhibit where my little daughter asked me where the teddy bear came around. Now that's some good stuff. Old Minor walked us right. into a great full circle ending.

Touche, minor Ferris Buchanan, touche. If you remember Miner's curiosity about the teddy bear all started at the Memphis Zoo in 1989. Here's some cleanup details. Two of the presidential guns are known about, but the whereabouts of Holtz gun are unknown. On another interesting note, in December 1908,

Theodore Roosevelt invited many of his friends across the country to the White House for a presidential wild game dinner, and Holt Collier was invited, but he politely declined. Also, Holt was later invited to Africa with Roosevelt, but he also declined. And just clean up stuff, Holt killed his last bear in 1911 at the age of 66. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls

and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to.

I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps Game Calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Now we're going to move into the final chapter of Holt's life. when Holt was an elderly man he had a house in town and Holt was slowing down the money was not coming in

because of the hunting grounds shrunk but he made a lot of money and I pointed out in the book that he would have after a hunting season he'd have $1,000 in his pocket cash well most white people didn't have that kind of money so he was well known to make a lot of money and at some point in time one of the METCAPS he aligned himself with the prominent Metcalf family

he helped them out a lot they helped him out a lot But somebody talked to him in to us when he had a handful of money, said you need to buy a piece of land or buy a house, build a house. And so he did in town. It's still there. Here's Hank with more about Holt's House in Greenville, Mississippi. Holt's House in Greenville on Broadway Street is quite unique in that it is in an area where mostly black workers lived and worked.

wasn't far from Mr. Percy's house and it's on the way to the Medcaf's house out in the country at Newstead Plantation. It's the only house in that area that's a two-story house. And there's a reason for that. Holt knew what that river could do. And he'd seen it do it too many times. So when he built his house, he made sure that he had a second story on his house. And it's still standing up there. Really? So Holt's house is still there? Holt House is still there. There's a story that I have no reason not to believe that it's true. The Metcalf boys, which I'm sure you.

Right, they hunted with him. They hunted together. They were big owners in the, shall I say, the commercial national bank, which is now, hold didn't drink, but Holt would go across the river and bring whiskey back over here and see to it that his friends had it whenever they wanted it. and he might have boobledged a little bit on the side, you know, selling, selling that whiskey. And the story goes that he had just put a new roof on his house, Cypress Shake, shingle roof. And the Metcalf bars were on the way back up north to Metcalf, Mississippi, where Newstead Plination was.

And they stopped by Holt's house, possibly to have a little nil, and they noticed that he had a new shingled roof on his house. And one of the Metcalfe asked him, where he got there, they said, well, he needed it. had to have that new roof on. He said, well, did you get all the money for that? He said, I went down to your bank and borrowed that money. The old bank loaned me the money. And I think it was asked how much was still owed on that roof. And Hope probably told him.

And he asked him to bring one of those shingles in there. And he did. And he wrote on that jingle with his knife paid in full and signed it. He said, take this down to the bank. And I got a roof paying off that. It was essentially a check. The Metcalf family were significant. players in Holt's life.

If you could pick 90 years to be alive on planet Earth, it would be hard to argue that the 90 that Holt was here, that he probably didn't see more change than any human generation ever. It's really interesting to me when you think about the span of human life and that we're all put on Earth for like a certain time period from this date to this date. Being born in 1846 and passing away in 1936 is an incredible span in terms of social development, technology, all the things that happened. I mean, going from, you know, pre-Civil War all the way to the 1930s here in America. I mean, it's a pretty incredible, I mean, you could go back and say from 1736 to 1846, I mean, life was about the same. and then, you know, even past that, but like that period of time was pretty wild.

I make the point in the very end of the book, that that very point, that Ho was born and raised in a time when horsepower was the only power there was. And in 1936 when he died, you know, they were, Hitler was in charge in Germany and World War II was on Eve of War II. And nuclear age was right around the corner. He lived in an amazing, and he put a lot of life in his 90 years. I'll give him that. You know, it's amazing he lived 90 years. So as I started this book, knowing nothing about Hulk Collier, other than just his small amounts about his reputation,

you know, I'm reading and he's 20 years old, and then he's 34 years old, and then he's 56 years old, and I'm kind of looking at the amount of pages left in the book, and I'm thinking, this guy, there's no way that he's going to be an old man. Like, he's going to die at age 60. And, man, I was shocked and thrilled when you see that he lived to be 90, which is such an incredible thing. Daniel Boone, one of my favorite characters in American history,

lived to be 86. And part of the reason he was so famous was most of his contemporaries died when they were 50. Right. You know, he just had a long span of life. And, I mean, I see that in Holt. He covered a lot of ground. I want to move to an interesting part of Holt's legacy, and it has to do with the famed American author

William Faulkner, who was a Nobel Prize laureate and widely considered the greatest Southern writer of all time. He was born in 1897 and died in 1962, which would have been prime time for Holt's regional legacy to be known. And Faulkner was from and spent most of his life in Mississippi. Faulkner is known for his quote, characterization of Southern characters, including fiercely intelligent people who are dwelling behind the facades of good old boys and simpletons. Minor has something to say about this. You know, his immediate legacy that I think about is the William Faulkner story. But there's no question that the Sam Father's character in several of the Faulkner books, particularly

the bear, go down Moses, Hokkaio was the inspiration for Sam Father. No question in my mind about it. Falkner's second home was Greenville, Mississippi. Here's the excerpt from William Faulkner's the bear. Let's see if you can make the connection. The old man of 70 who had been a negro for two generations now, but whose face and bearing were still those of the Chickasaw chief who had been his father. And he was glad. He was old. He had no children, no people, none of his blood anywhere above earth that he would ever meet again. And even if he were to, He could not have touched it, spoken to it, because for 70 years now, he had to be a negro. It was almost over now, and he was glad.

But still, the woods would be his mistress and his wife. End of quote. This is from Miner's book, Holt Collier. Quote, Pete Johnson, one of the neighborhood children who knew Collier for many years, and who often drove him when the old man was too feeble to walk, described Holt's complexion as dark olive, similar to that of a Native American Indian. And similarly, Harris Dixon referred to Collier as a yellow man. Johnson strongly believed that Holt Collier had Native American blood

and that his lineage would be obvious to a careful observer. The reader can draw his or her own conclusions by studying the Vaughn Dresser portrait rendered in 1935. Collier's bloodline, of course, cannot be confirmed, and it seems of little consequence in the research of Collier's life until a reference is found in the regimental history of the 9th, Texas Calvary, of an Indian boy, riding with Captain Perry Evans Company who raced horses in the company's popular equestrian contests. End of quote. It's clear to see where Minor is getting that the Sam Father's character of Faulkner's is based upon Holt Collier. I now want to read another excerpt for Miner's book, and it's about the latter years of

Holt's life, and it's pretty sad. Quote, in 1928, largely because of the flood and the economic disruptions it caused, many African Americans began leaving Washington County for better opportunities in the north. Cawyer saw many of his people leave the area. From the effects of the flood, the storm, and the loss of his friends, Collier fell into a state of despair from which he never completely recovered. His wife Francis earned a meager income as a housekeeper, but Holt was too feeble to provide any income other than his pension of $200 annually. He had for years collected corn shucks from the area of plantations, which he sold to a stable. He also collected dried bones, which he sold as fertilizer, and on occasion he would train and sell

a hunting dog. One dog he sold to John and Nathan Adams for 30. and it would not hunt. When the boys returned the dog, Holt explained that his ears had to be twisted with pliers and he would then take to the briars. Collier also made a little money during prohibition

by supplying Arkansas corn whiskey to his white friends who did not want to deal with bootleggers across the river. Hulk Collier's Confederate Servants pension was successfully renewed in 1916. In a 1928, Collier was approved

for a pension from the state of Mississippi, not as a servant, but as a Confederate soldier. No longer was the award based on Holt's service for his former master. He was recognized as a combatant for his service in the 9th Texas Calvary. He is the only known African American classified as a combatant by any of the former Confederate states. End of quote. It's sad for me to see a man like Holbrook. having a rough ending to his life and to become depressed. That's really sad after we know all that we know about him.

It's well documented that many African Americans were in the Confederate Army, but at the time of this research, Holt was the only African American classified as a combatant. The others in the Confederate Army were doing stuff other than fighting. It's complicated because others did fight, but they weren't officially registered as combatants. just want to make that clear. The philosophical premise of the Confederacy was that if the blacks were good enough to fight, they were good enough to be independent people who deserve civil rights,

so they were denied official classification as combatants, but somehow Holt slipped through the cracks, and he had a knack for doing that. Holt died in 1936 at the age of 90. His third wife, Francis, had died at the age of 44, five years before him in 1931, of an aneurism. The last several years of his life, Holt almost went blind. Death is rarely noble, and sadly, it was not noble for Holt Collier. He died a poor man and was buried in an unmarked grave in Greenville, Mississippi. James A. King had that big monument I showed you a picture of from the day he was buried. Holt lay in an unmarked grave, died in 1936.

He was in an unmarked grave for 60 years until we put this headstone. So what year was that headstone? 2004. Wow. Do you feel like that was a result of this book and bringing some attention to him? Absolutely. 100%. It is now, we've, we've brick.

It's a monument now. It's in an enclosed gate. Many people and groups were involved in getting Holtz's. headstone and turning his grave into a monument. But two of the men that can be given a lot of credit are Hank Burdine and Minor Ferris Buchanan. There is something else I haven't told you. I'll let Hank tell you. James Cummins with Wildlife Mississippi,

Senator Thad Cochran decided to do something with these wildlife refuges around here and pull them all into one complex called the Theater Roosevelt Wildlife. Refuge System. And they had several thousand acres that had just come into the system that they named the Holger Wildlife Refuge, which is right out number 12 highway over here. There's some farmland that had been cleared, but it'd gone back into trees, been planted back into trees and it's coming back on pretty strong now. It is the only refuge in the entire United States Refuge, Federal Refuge System that's named after a man of African descent. To me, that's pretty strong.

We've got a lot of famous black people. Done a lot of wonderful and famous things. But there's only one that has a wildlife refuge, a federal wildlife refuge named after him, and that's Hulk Collier. The Hulk Collier National Wildlife Refuge was established in 2004, two years after Miner's book was published. The refuge is open to the public for hunting and outdoor recreation. Here's Minor asking a question that I had from the beginning, and the answer is not flashy.

Everybody always wants to know why in a movie been made about this guy. And this is giving an example of why it's just nobody in Hollywood wants to put a black man riding with a confederate outfit. It's so politically incorrect. That's all I can come up with. I mean, there are so many, this is such a wonderful story for the big screen. I mean, if you had to put all the great characters in American history out there, I'd put him right up there with the best of them. Holt never really fit into anyone's mold. Jonathan Wilkins is an African-American hunter and guide from the Delta.

He is a Holt Collier officiado who helped give us some insight into Holt's life in part one and two. I wanted to end this series by asking him how Holt Collier's story had inspired him. personally. Here's what he said. You know, so for me, what it would inspire is trying to live a life with as few blockades as possible, trying to fully realize myself. You know, ultimately, you're dealing with a person who, because of the circumstances of his birth, should not have had the influence and impact that he did. And he did so because he refused to internalize all the circumstances. the messaging about who he was from outside.

And that had to be from a very young age. For a 10-year-old child to have the chutzpah to go out into this American southern jungle and kill a bear with a rudimentary weapon and then get to the point where he's credited with killing 3,000 black bears, that's a person who doesn't allow external limitations to dictate what their life can be. For him to be able to stand on equal footing with one of the most influential political figures in the history of this country

and instruct him and, you know, probably scold him. Man, I told you to be sitting right here and you couldn't wait for a sandwich and you got my dogs killed, you know? Like, that's a person who doesn't let external limitations dictate the quality and the substance of their life. And it's not, this isn't like a, this isn't a pull yourself up by your bootstraps trope. Because like we keep using the word extraordinary, right?

This is a guy who is beyond the pale. But, you know, as human beings, we look towards the extraordinary. We look towards the outliers to find inspiration for the fact that almost everybody is ordinary. But to realize that we all have the ability to be extraordinary at some time or in some place or in some instance. William Faulkner wrote of the fictional character Sam Fathers, quote, like an old lion or bear in a cage. He was born in a cage and he has been in it his whole life. He knows nothing else. By external measures, Holt seemed to thrive in the post-bellum south and will never know his deep motivations, his regrets and the shackles that the race barriers placed

on his life. Media cherry-picked the highlights that America was interested in at the time. And that's how the game works. And those interviews are the primary source for the material that we have. What I'm trying to say is that this story is a lot more complicated than just a guy who seemingly had this adventurous and wildlife. His life was filled with tragedy. And I don't know.

I just want to tell his story. I'll end this whole series with Miner's words from his book. Quote, Holt Collier is entitled to a place in the history and heritage of the United States alongside the many courageous pioneers and hunters of fame and legend. His service to the Confederacy will no doubt be debated by those of both races who prefer not to believe it. His contribution as a pioneer to the opening of the Mississippi Delta wilderness cannot be ignored.

He is a central figure in the story of the teddy bear. His courage, tenacity, honesty, honesty, integrity, and independence should be an inspiration to all Americans. Thank you so much for listening to Bear Greece. I've been deeply moved by the story of Hulk Collier. You can buy Minor Ferris Buchanan's book, Holt Collier, at Holtcollier.com. And be sure to check out all of our bare grease merch on the meat eater.com and do me a favor by sharing this series with a friend this week. Long live the beast and long live the legacy of our brother, Hulk Collier.

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. 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. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.