Speaker 1: M ultimately, you're dealing with a person who, because of
Speaker 1: the circumstances of his birth, should not have had the
Speaker 1: influence and impact that he did, and he did so
Speaker 1: because he refused to internalize all the messaging about who
Speaker 1: he was from outside. This week on the Bargrease podcast
Speaker 1: we're on our third and final episode in our series
Speaker 1: on the extraordinary life of the former slave, confederate soldier,
Speaker 1: bear hunter and Mississippi Native Hulk Collier. Many believe he
Speaker 1: deserves to sit in the saddle with the greats of
Speaker 1: American history, but his life is stacked deep in controversy, murder,
Speaker 1: fortunes won and lost, an unrivaled adventure. We've tracked the
Speaker 1: data points we have on hold, but like a boar
Speaker 1: bear being pursued by hounds, he's difficult to course. This
Speaker 1: episode is dedicated to his famous Ted bear hunt when
Speaker 1: he guided President Theodore Roosevelt, and will discuss Holtz lasting legacy.
Speaker 1: He lived in bold opposition to the trends of the age.
Speaker 1: He was a black man that overcame, endured and thrived
Speaker 1: in the south in a dangerous period. But even in
Speaker 1: the midst of victory, his life leaves us with a
Speaker 1: tragic aftertaste. The story of Holtz life exemplifies core bear grease.
Speaker 1: It's the finest renderings, the choice meat of the ACORN,
Speaker 1: the flash of the flashiest mule, the crescendo trill of
Speaker 1: the barred owl. It's the Black Panther of all Black
Speaker 1: Panther Stories, and I'm honored to tell it to you.
Speaker 1: I doubt you're gonna want to miss this one. And
Speaker 1: we rides into camp and he've got the bar tied
Speaker 1: in the back of his horse. He said, did the
Speaker 1: President Kill that baron? He said no, but if he
Speaker 1: had followed my instructions he would have. My name is
Speaker 1: Clay Nukelem and this is the bear grease podcast, where
Speaker 1: we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and
Speaker 1: unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans
Speaker 1: who lived their lives close to the land presented by
Speaker 1: F hf gear, American made, purpose built hunting and fishing
Speaker 1: gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places
Speaker 1: we explore. He lived his life from day one all
Speaker 1: the way through as somebody you took seriously. White men
Speaker 1: sought him out in the deep South in that time
Speaker 1: for shought him out not only white men but the
Speaker 1: president United States, and I'll talk him on two hunts,
Speaker 1: not just one. If there's one thing we've learned about
Speaker 1: Hulk Collyer, it's that he was a man to be
Speaker 1: taken seriously on this third and final episode. For any
Speaker 1: of you hillbillies who are just getting here, here's the summary.
Speaker 1: Hulk Collyer was born a slave in Mississippi in eighteen
Speaker 1: forty six he fought in the confederate army. He killed
Speaker 1: two white men and shot another one after the civil war,
Speaker 1: but wasn't convicted. He worked as a cowboy in Texas.
Speaker 1: He served as a deputy sheriff. He gambled like a sailor.
Speaker 1: He never drank a drop of alcohol. He had three
Speaker 1: wives and at least fourteen children, which I hadn't told
Speaker 1: you yet. He had a baseball team named after him.
Speaker 1: He was incredibly loyal to his friends and he had
Speaker 1: close relationships with men of great power, and he spent
Speaker 1: thirty six years as a professional bear hunter in the
Speaker 1: Mississippi Delta. But his life wasn't all guns and roses.
Speaker 1: The backdrop of his life was the systemic racism of
Speaker 1: the day. Holt lived amid undeniable racial hierarchy, even though
Speaker 1: many were trying to remedy the human tragedy of slavery
Speaker 1: in its generational wake of destruction. I don't know how
Speaker 1: we got here, but this is just where we've been found,
Speaker 1: in the midst of the dirty story of humanity, and
Speaker 1: Holtz life is of great interest for examination and inspiration.
Speaker 1: Man Do I love this story. So Holt has been
Speaker 1: a professional market bear hunter since eighteen seventy. We learned
Speaker 1: that on episode two, selling meat to hungry labor markets
Speaker 1: in the south. But in eighteen ninety he became a
Speaker 1: sport hunting outfitter. In nineteen o two Holt was fifty
Speaker 1: six years old. Here's our old friend author, minor Ferris Buchanan,
Speaker 1: who wrote the only book on Holt Collier, called Holt Collier,
Speaker 1: and he's going to introduce us to the famous ninth
Speaker 1: Teeno to bear hunt with President Theodore Roosevelt. So he
Speaker 1: starts out doing this and he does this for thirty
Speaker 1: years until finally in the nineteen o two when Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt is wants to go on a on a Delta
Speaker 1: hunt for a black bear through certain contacts of the
Speaker 1: Illinois Central Railroad contact of Le Roy personally, where a
Speaker 1: persony recommends, so they finally get whole. Caryer is going
Speaker 1: to lead this hunt. That's in addition to the hunting
Speaker 1: experience he had prior to eighteen seventy. Had thirty or
Speaker 1: two years of experience. He knew that Delta better than
Speaker 1: anybody and what's hard for us today to envision was
Speaker 1: the reputation that the south had for bear hunting with hound.
Speaker 1: The reason Theodore Roosevelt even knew about that this hunt
Speaker 1: existed was because in the eighteen nineties there are many
Speaker 1: magazines and publications that talked about southern hunting and Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt read them all and he wanted to go on
Speaker 1: a deep south black bear hunt more than anything morning.
Speaker 1: He wanted to go to Africa, he wanted to go
Speaker 1: on one of these hunts, sisting on it. So he
Speaker 1: comes down in nineteen o two by train and they
Speaker 1: have a five day hunt. Who Ki you're when he
Speaker 1: killed his first bear right outside of Greenville? He was
Speaker 1: ten years old. He shot it off of the back porch.
Speaker 1: So that would have been eighteen fifty six. By nineteen
Speaker 1: O two, when Theodore Roosevelt comes down here to hunt.
Speaker 1: Who can't find any beary in Washington county's got to
Speaker 1: go all the way down to Sharky County, fifty miles away.
Speaker 1: He's got to go way out into the willerness on
Speaker 1: the Sunflower River, fourteen miles due east of the railroad track.
Speaker 1: It's it's a very difficult place to get to and
Speaker 1: that's where the hunt took places. Century they had killed
Speaker 1: out a lot of bears from the market hunting and
Speaker 1: market hunting and by then, you know, the area had
Speaker 1: been settled. You had railroads in here by nineteen o two,
Speaker 1: I think. I think recreational hunting had taken a lot
Speaker 1: of as well. The early nineteen hundreds were a grim
Speaker 1: time for North American wildlife, and old Americanus wasn't exempt.
Speaker 1: They were pushed to the remote interiors of their range.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt was keen to the diminishing southern Black Bear in
Speaker 1: this unique style of hunting and he wanted in before
Speaker 1: it was gone. Roosevelt had been on a transformative journey
Speaker 1: on his ideology of wild places and wild beasts. In
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty three he went on a bison hunt in
Speaker 1: Montana and it was said, quote, that he danced enthusiastically
Speaker 1: around the buffalo to celebrate his success. End of quote.
Speaker 1: This was after he'd killed a Buffalo, but on a
Speaker 1: later bison hunt in eighteen eighty nine, when the herds
Speaker 1: dwindled to extremely low numbers, he wrote. Quote. For several
Speaker 1: minutes I watched the great beast as they grazed. Mixed
Speaker 1: with eager excitement of the hunter was a certain half
Speaker 1: melancholy feeling as I gazed on these bison, themselves part
Speaker 1: of the last remnant of a doomed in nearly vanished race.
Speaker 1: Few indeed are the men who now have, or evermore
Speaker 1: shall have, the chance of seeing the mightiest of American
Speaker 1: beasts and all his wild vigor, surrounded by the tremendous
Speaker 1: desolation of his far off mountain home. End of quote.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt exemplified the irony of the hunter's heart. He was
Speaker 1: compelled to pursue and kill these animals, but a deeper
Speaker 1: priority and conviction to save these beasts in their habitat arose.
Speaker 1: In the end, Roosevelt's radical conservation ideology proved to be
Speaker 1: an act of what some people have called American genius.
Speaker 1: Where an animal has cultural value to the common man
Speaker 1: through hunting, that animal and his habitat will be preserved.
Speaker 1: This has worked for the last hundred and twenty years
Speaker 1: and our prayer is that it will continue to work.
Speaker 1: We all live in the wake of Teddy Roosevelt's boldness.
Speaker 1: That's some deep watered a way through this Lee, but
Speaker 1: I bet you a possum tattoo that holds stories of
Speaker 1: the Dwindlinge Mississippi Black bears fueled Roosevelt's desire to protect wildlife.
Speaker 1: Here's Hankberd and our buddy from the past several episodes,
Speaker 1: telling us about Roosevelt arriving in Mississippi. It's real close
Speaker 1: to smedes landing where Roosevelt got off the train. This
Speaker 1: was a secret trip. The first time they planned it,
Speaker 1: Roodovelt Fred was gonna turn into a picnic. So he
Speaker 1: he canceled the first trip and was able to put
Speaker 1: together another one and came down on most the size
Speaker 1: of them fishes. Eleanor Central Railroad train got off its
Speaker 1: smedes landing ready to hunt, ready to go, and there
Speaker 1: were newspaper reporters that were there that were not allowed
Speaker 1: to go out to camp, which was ten fifteen miles inland.
Speaker 1: into the swamp. One or two of them was allowed
Speaker 1: to go and there was about a whole carload of
Speaker 1: secret service policeman protecting the president. But when he got
Speaker 1: down they got ready to go. Hold Tread No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'M gonna be in one in charge of taking care
Speaker 1: of the president. Rood of them said he's safer with
Speaker 1: me than with all the policeman in Washington D C.
Speaker 1: So they all stayed at the landing. So it was
Speaker 1: right close in. Roosevelt and Holt just took off into
Speaker 1: the wilderness together. The first thing Rhodovelt said to hold
Speaker 1: collier that he came over of that train and went
Speaker 1: straight to that black man and his hunting gear with
Speaker 1: his hand outstretched, and he said you must be holp.
Speaker 1: I hears you as a great ball hunter, and they
Speaker 1: shook hands and with the closest of friends from that
Speaker 1: point on. It was said quote. Were it not for
Speaker 1: his highbrow and the distracting brilliance of his smile, Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt would unquestionably be an ugly man. He had small ears,
Speaker 1: heavy jowls, large wide spaced eyes of Pale and he
Speaker 1: wore rimless glasses. His most celebrated feature where his dazzling
Speaker 1: white teeth. Even an ugly president in nineteen o two
Speaker 1: shaking a black man's hand wasn't normal. It might have
Speaker 1: been a savvy political move, but I believe Roosevelt was
Speaker 1: just being a normal human honoring another human that he
Speaker 1: respected because of the fruit of his life. Roosevelt would
Speaker 1: send Holt Christmas cards and personal letters multiple times over
Speaker 1: the years. He would later give hold a gun as
Speaker 1: a gift. On the first night of their hunt, Roosevelt
Speaker 1: instructed everyone to call him Colonel Roosevelt and dropped the president.
Speaker 1: He was a socially progressive leader and he took some
Speaker 1: heat from some sectors of the press for Hob nobbing
Speaker 1: with a former slave. Later in his presidency, Leroy Percy,
Speaker 1: who was on this hunt, would consult with Roosevelt at
Speaker 1: the White House about how Percy planned to effectively rebuild
Speaker 1: the south and give social ladders to the black and
Speaker 1: vehemently opposed the rising power of the Clue Klux Klan.
Speaker 1: This gives you some insight into the kind of men
Speaker 1: that Holt considered friends. This was more than a bear hunt,
Speaker 1: though he was genuinely there to kill a bear. I
Speaker 1: think Roosevelt wanted himself to be seen giving honor to
Speaker 1: a man of African descent. Here's minor with the details
Speaker 1: of the hunt that would become known as the Teddy
Speaker 1: Bear Hunt. Roosevelt is gonna go fourteen miles out onto
Speaker 1: the banks of the little sunflower river, where he's gonna
Speaker 1: stay for five days. President United States is gonna disappear,
Speaker 1: literally disappearing to the ozone for that length of time.
Speaker 1: And the press, they want to go out there to
Speaker 1: be on the campsite with him, but they won't allow that.
Speaker 1: In fact, they armed several black men to corn off
Speaker 1: this this hunt site and uh and they wanted to
Speaker 1: go but they were denied, so they had to find
Speaker 1: a place to stay. So any newspaper report will have
Speaker 1: to be sent out by Telegraph, and the press are
Speaker 1: allowed out to the hunt site. Certainly wants a day
Speaker 1: to get to interview people and Whatnot. We need to
Speaker 1: understand the players on this hunt and the press is
Speaker 1: a major player. It's important to understand the role because
Speaker 1: they would be communicating with the country eagerly watching their
Speaker 1: president every single day. A second player was Holt's favorite
Speaker 1: fice dog. Here's Hank introducing them to us. Holt's favorite
Speaker 1: dog was a little squirrel dog, a little fice dog
Speaker 1: named Jocko. Probably didn't weigh fifteen pounds. He could not
Speaker 1: run with the big dogs because he wasn't a big dog.
Speaker 1: He won't a trailing dog or anything like. Hey, here
Speaker 1: a little face dog, he let's quarrel dog, but hold
Speaker 1: a door him and he played an integral part. And
Speaker 1: every bear whole killed with Jocko was around, and the
Speaker 1: way that hold would do it. You don't just run
Speaker 1: into a bath that your big dogs are on with
Speaker 1: a knife. That bad gonna red view. Well, when you're
Speaker 1: a bear, bade after your trailing dogs had bade the
Speaker 1: bear and the bad turn around. The right buzz is
Speaker 1: as old now. We've been to fight this and the
Speaker 1: dogs catch dogs. Some album would go in and attack
Speaker 1: the bear. That's when hope would turn jocko loose. Jocko
Speaker 1: was carried on his saddle and a little burlap bag
Speaker 1: with a string tight around it with Jocko's head out
Speaker 1: and he would tied around the Saddle Horn. Jocko saw
Speaker 1: all action. He knew what was going on and when
Speaker 1: hope would turn Jocko loose and these are inhold words.
Speaker 1: Jocko will run in and Harry the bear. He would
Speaker 1: run around and bite the ball on one side and
Speaker 1: the ball would turn over to that side and then
Speaker 1: he'd run on the other side and bite the bar
Speaker 1: on the other side. And while Jocko was harrying the ball,
Speaker 1: hope was running with a knife and stead him in
Speaker 1: the hut. Killer band. And that's what happened. That's how
Speaker 1: they hunted. Jocko's sounds like quite the companion. Killing the
Speaker 1: bear with a knife wasn't just a macho feet but
Speaker 1: it was an effective way to dispatch a bear without
Speaker 1: accidentally shooting the dog, which is a real problem when
Speaker 1: the bear is being made by dogs on the ground.
Speaker 1: This might be hard to understand, but in bear hunting
Speaker 1: the dogs are of highest priority. Bear hunters to this
Speaker 1: day would take a bullet for their dogs. Here's minor
Speaker 1: telling us about the hunt the very first night. Roosevelt
Speaker 1: is all about whole car. He wants to know all
Speaker 1: about hold. He's served in because all these wonderful stories,
Speaker 1: and I think that's when when the hope confesses to
Speaker 1: him that he had killed James, a king and a
Speaker 1: duel in the cane brake and then he wants about
Speaker 1: know about the hunt in the morning. One of the
Speaker 1: plans and that Roosevelt did not want to sit on
Speaker 1: a stationary stand like deer hunters. Due today all the
Speaker 1: articles that have been written about bear hunting were chasing
Speaker 1: the bear on horseback, being entangled in the Briars, tooting
Speaker 1: the horns and calling and active through the swamps. He
Speaker 1: wanted to be on the chase and uh his his hosts, however,
Speaker 1: we're a great deal more timid than he was. They
Speaker 1: were afraid that they we don't want a president to
Speaker 1: get hurt on one of our hunts. So the plan
Speaker 1: was the very next morning was for hope, to put
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt on a stationary stand, which was basically sitting
Speaker 1: on a log. So the fellow who accompanied Theodore Roosevelt
Speaker 1: to sit on that log was a guy named Huger foot.
Speaker 1: And they're sitting out there and there's a log, there's
Speaker 1: a slew of water, small pond. Immediately on the other
Speaker 1: side of this slough is a stand of cane and
Speaker 1: there's a game trail right across from the log where
Speaker 1: it's obvious jaguars come through their cats dogs, whatever is
Speaker 1: out there, wolves, bear come through that and they come
Speaker 1: to the slough to drink. Well, he puts Roosevelt and
Speaker 1: hear your foot on this log and give them specific
Speaker 1: instructions not to go anywhere. He and his dogs are
Speaker 1: gonna chase a bear. First they got to pick up
Speaker 1: the cent of a bear, then they got to follow
Speaker 1: the bed and then they gotta so they here hold
Speaker 1: and he tells them they'll stay right where you are.
Speaker 1: I'M gonna TRACK A bear. I'm gonna Chase the bear
Speaker 1: and he's gonna come right out of that game trail
Speaker 1: hold and they can't and I'm gonna bring him back
Speaker 1: to this slough. That's exactly what he does. It just
Speaker 1: takes a lot longer to do than they anticipated. They
Speaker 1: sit there on that log and they hear when caryer
Speaker 1: picks up the trail of the bear. They hear the
Speaker 1: dogs and they hear them go up north and then
Speaker 1: they hear the bear and the dogs go south and
Speaker 1: then they hear him go back North again. They can't
Speaker 1: see them, but they know they're in the distance, maybe
Speaker 1: a quarter of a mile away, maybe half, somewhere between
Speaker 1: them and the little Sunflyer River holsting everything, you can't
Speaker 1: keep that bear from getting to the little Sunflyer River.
Speaker 1: Doesn't want to cross the river, don't want to drink
Speaker 1: from the river, and then he goes all the way
Speaker 1: south until it's so far away Huger Foot says that
Speaker 1: bear must have crossed the Yazoo River. They actually think
Speaker 1: the bed has gotten away from hope and about that
Speaker 1: time they're getting hungry. They put out on that stand
Speaker 1: about eight o'clock in the morning. It is now new.
Speaker 1: They're hungry and Holt told him not to leave, but
Speaker 1: they left. They ride back into camp to get a
Speaker 1: sandwich or something to eat and as luck would have it,
Speaker 1: about the time they leave that stand, hope turns that
Speaker 1: bear around and about the time Roosevelt is eating a sandwich,
Speaker 1: holts got that bear heading right to him and he's
Speaker 1: behind that bear, I don't know, a hundred yards, two
Speaker 1: hundred yards, and instinctively hope knows where he is and
Speaker 1: he instinctively he knows that bear is popping his head
Speaker 1: out into that Slough about it right now, and he
Speaker 1: does not hear a gunshot and he immediately senses what
Speaker 1: has happened. The president leaves the stand early to head
Speaker 1: back for lunch. I believe Roosevelt was a tough hunter
Speaker 1: and he might have stayed there if it weren't for
Speaker 1: his host. Roosevelt had pleaded that the hunt numbers stay small.
Speaker 1: He had written to his friend John Parker. Quote. In short,
Speaker 1: my experience is that to try to combine a hunt
Speaker 1: and a picnic generally means a poor picnic and always
Speaker 1: means a spoiled hunt. Every additional man on a hunt
Speaker 1: tends to hurt it. Of course, I am only going
Speaker 1: because I want to hunt and do see that I
Speaker 1: get the first bear without fail. End of quote. Roosevelt
Speaker 1: was adamant that he be the first one that killed
Speaker 1: a bear and he wanted to keep the hunt small. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it really didn't turn out that way and it turned
Speaker 1: into more of a picnic and the president would forever
Speaker 1: regret it. Here's hank talking about Holtz log. Well, when
Speaker 1: that Bab broke out right at that log where the
Speaker 1: president was supposed to be sitting, and the president wasn't there,
Speaker 1: it perturbed hope pretty bad. Well, the dogs were on
Speaker 1: the bear and the bar started mauling the dogs and
Speaker 1: Holt had been told that the president kills the first bear.
Speaker 1: No one kills the bear before president does, or the colonel,
Speaker 1: as President Roosevelt asked to be called, when the bear
Speaker 1: was killing his dogs, and Holt knew he had to
Speaker 1: do something, so he turned jocko loose. And when Jocko
Speaker 1: ran into Mali, the baries nine and grabbed little jocko
Speaker 1: and was mauling Jocko. And that is why hope clubbed
Speaker 1: his gun and ran in, because if he were to
Speaker 1: shoot the bear he might kill Jocko, his favorite dog.
Speaker 1: He clubbed his gun and ran in screaming ball, let
Speaker 1: go my dog, ball, let go my dog, and he
Speaker 1: swung in an arc and hit the bear at the
Speaker 1: base of the skull and basically cracked the score, stunned
Speaker 1: to the bear. The bad drop jocko loose. He had
Speaker 1: already killed Jocko and fell back into the water. I
Speaker 1: hated to do that to you. I Tell my children
Speaker 1: that owning a dog is basically planning for a sad funeral.
Speaker 1: They will die and it will be sad. So Jocko
Speaker 1: is now dead and he wouldn't be if the president
Speaker 1: had been there. And Holt ain't happy. Let's step back
Speaker 1: in time. Two minutes to win. Holt had just clubbed
Speaker 1: the bear with his rifle, and I want to say
Speaker 1: that this bear story was told this way by Holt,
Speaker 1: as recorded by the press. This wasn't an exaggerated story
Speaker 1: told a hundred years later by people who didn't know him.
Speaker 1: And this bear was an older boar, weighing two D
Speaker 1: and thirty five pounds and was said to be bone
Speaker 1: skinny and he was six ft seven inches nose to tell.
Speaker 1: That's a really good bear. Here's minor and the bear
Speaker 1: stands up. Acording to Holt, I was looking straight up
Speaker 1: at him. He's at least two FT taller than me
Speaker 1: and I had the gun in my hand but I
Speaker 1: couldn't shoot it because the barrel was bent. So he
Speaker 1: retreated back to his horse and got his, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: Texas rope that he had been carrying with him all
Speaker 1: these years and he lasts sowed that bear and pulled it,
Speaker 1: took all the slack out on a willow tree and
Speaker 1: had him, had the bear tethered. We know it broke
Speaker 1: his skull, cracked the skull, because we still have the
Speaker 1: skull the Smithsonian Institution and uh, it's been examined, it's
Speaker 1: got a crack and UH. At any rate, caller ties
Speaker 1: his bear to a tree. It ain't going anywhere because
Speaker 1: he's he's tied real close with Real, real short line,
Speaker 1: and he sends a couple of men to the camp
Speaker 1: go find the president getting well. About that time, you
Speaker 1: know pretty quickly the president comes riding up with Huger
Speaker 1: Foot and all the other hunters are all gathered there
Speaker 1: and they say, Mr President, shoot, shoot that bear. Turn
Speaker 1: to that tree and Roosevelt thanks about it for a second.
Speaker 1: He knows those reporters are gonna be coming into camp
Speaker 1: that evening and they're gonna want and if the word
Speaker 1: goes out that he shot a bear that was tied
Speaker 1: to a tree, it would be devastated. He just he
Speaker 1: just wouldn't stand for so he refused to shoot the bear.
Speaker 1: The skull of that bear is in the Smithsonian Institution
Speaker 1: in Washington D C, with the cracked skull. Now that
Speaker 1: is wild. I want to say a word of defense
Speaker 1: for my brother Teddy Roosevelt. No doubt he calculated the
Speaker 1: press in not killing the tied bear, but Roosevelt played
Speaker 1: a vital role in articulating the ideas of fair chase
Speaker 1: developed by his Boone and Crockett Club. Here's their definition
Speaker 1: of fair chase. Quote. Fair Chase is the ethic old,
Speaker 1: sportsmanlike and lawful pursuit and taking of any free ranging
Speaker 1: wild game animal in a manner that does not give
Speaker 1: the hunter an improper or unfair advantage over the game animal.
Speaker 1: End of quote. Shooting a tied bear is not fair chase. Now,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, using dogs, however, is emphatically fair chase.
Speaker 1: It's hard to kill game using dogs. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: don't be knocking hunting with hounds. Hunting with dogs is
Speaker 1: so foundational to the human experience that saying it's ethically
Speaker 1: wrong is like knocking the legs off the chair that
Speaker 1: you're sitting in. My, Oh my, I'm now climbing off
Speaker 1: my soapbox and walking back over to our story. Here's
Speaker 1: minor John Parker was on this hunt. Now, John is
Speaker 1: an interesting fella. He was from Louisiana. He born and
Speaker 1: raised in Mississippi, but he later became him governor of Louisiana.
Speaker 1: Was Theodore Roosevelt's vice president's candidate when he ran the
Speaker 1: second time as a bull Moose candidate. And Uh, he
Speaker 1: was a scrappy fellow. He wrote he didn't stay on
Speaker 1: the stand. He rolled behind a halt the whole time.
Speaker 1: So they, Mr President, killed this bear and, uh, he
Speaker 1: refused to do it, just absolutely refused to do it.
Speaker 1: John Parkers to them, says he'd volunteer and he wanted
Speaker 1: to kill a bear in the old fashioned way, the
Speaker 1: old hunter's way, where he lands the bear with a knife,
Speaker 1: stabbed the bear of the knife. And the way it's described,
Speaker 1: and everything I've read, is you stand on one side
Speaker 1: of the bear and you stab the bear in the
Speaker 1: chest or in the hard cavity from the other side,
Speaker 1: on the opposite side, because the bear is gonna gonna
Speaker 1: if he if he has an opportunity to strike or bite,
Speaker 1: he's gonna bite where that whether from the direction of
Speaker 1: the pain from the so you need to be standing
Speaker 1: on the opposite side of the bear. Well, Roosevelt happens
Speaker 1: to be carrying this dagger. It was more like an
Speaker 1: Arkansas toothpick. Toss it down to John Park and said here,
Speaker 1: use this. Well, Parker, hit a rib or something just
Speaker 1: made the bear mad. This is hopetelling the story and
Speaker 1: he and he really resented it because now the bear
Speaker 1: was mad enough, now he's mad or even madder, and
Speaker 1: that wholes the one is going to have to dispatch
Speaker 1: the bear, which he does, and that's pretty much the
Speaker 1: end of it. Hope puts the bear on the back
Speaker 1: of his horse, rising the camp, Roosevelt and park and
Speaker 1: the rest of him going. Now they don't have the dogs,
Speaker 1: they don't they're not hunting, but now they're hunting anything
Speaker 1: and they just boys in the wood, so to speak.
Speaker 1: But the hope goes back into camp. And when he
Speaker 1: rides into camp and he's got his bear tied to
Speaker 1: the back of his horse, he said, did the President
Speaker 1: Kill that bear? And he says no, but if he
Speaker 1: had followed my instructions he would have. He says it's
Speaker 1: to the press. He says it's to the press and
Speaker 1: he didn't realize what he was saying. Well, I know,
Speaker 1: and the press ran with it and it was all
Speaker 1: it was on the front page and every newspaper Coast
Speaker 1: to coast that not only had the president failed to
Speaker 1: get his trophy bear, he had done it by failing
Speaker 1: to follow the structures of this lowly guide who don't
Speaker 1: even know how to read write. So whole care in
Speaker 1: nineteen o two. As I say, it becomes the first
Speaker 1: man of sportsman of African descent to have national recognition.
Speaker 1: And that's before Jack Johnson Holt didn't know what he'd done,
Speaker 1: but he'd leaked the details that would forever etch him
Speaker 1: into history, because the press ran with the story of
Speaker 1: the tide bearer. Well, it got so much news coverage
Speaker 1: that it wasn't just the news coverage. Clifford Berryman, who
Speaker 1: was a well known cartoonist, picks up this event and
Speaker 1: he does a cartoon about it and it's called drawing
Speaker 1: the line in Mississippi and it's it's drawn up in
Speaker 1: the Washington Post on November six nineteen O two. I've
Speaker 1: talked to a lot of historians, I've read a lot
Speaker 1: of articles about this and nobody can come up with
Speaker 1: the definite with the explanation for this title. But at
Speaker 1: this point in time there's been a debate every year
Speaker 1: in the United States Congress for an anti lynching legislation
Speaker 1: and it never passes. Now look at that car too
Speaker 1: and tell me if you can see how that would
Speaker 1: be material to an anti lynching. So the picture is
Speaker 1: is a man with a bear roped around the neck
Speaker 1: looks like white man with a black bear and a
Speaker 1: rope around his neck, and then the president of the
Speaker 1: line in Mississippi, and president has his back turned to
Speaker 1: that with his hand out. So is that saying that
Speaker 1: Roosevelt never passed the law? What would that be? What
Speaker 1: I'm saying is there's some misconceptions here. First of all,
Speaker 1: the man with a rope around the bear's neck is white.
Speaker 1: This would have been a whole care. It should have
Speaker 1: been a black man. What if that wouldn't have fit
Speaker 1: the narrative of Anti Lynching? Let's and as whole. And then, basically,
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt said I'm drawing the line in Mississippi. I
Speaker 1: I tend to think that this as anti lynching connotations around.
Speaker 1: Be that as it may, Clifford Barman continues to use
Speaker 1: the teddy bear air in his car. Anytime he has
Speaker 1: something about Roosevelt, he puts a bear and he puts
Speaker 1: a little bears as a comic relief in a in
Speaker 1: a political cartoon. Before the Teddy Bear, the comic relief
Speaker 1: in any Theater Roosevelt cartoon would have been a raccoon.
Speaker 1: Raccoon Barman started the teddy bear. When did he actually
Speaker 1: call it the teddy bear. The Teddy Bear didn't pick
Speaker 1: up the name until it became a toy, so it
Speaker 1: was later. So well, it was very soon after this
Speaker 1: Barriman made the bear comic relief and political cartoons about Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: and later it would be commercialized and turned into a
Speaker 1: children's toy called the TAP. And they're multiple things happening
Speaker 1: at this point in time. So you got Barman doing it,
Speaker 1: you got other cartoonists start doing it. But soon after
Speaker 1: this happened a toymaker in New York besides he wants
Speaker 1: to make a toy and he wants to call it
Speaker 1: the teddy bear. Well, the legend is that he contacted
Speaker 1: Roosevelt and said we want to call it Teddy's bear
Speaker 1: and it thosevelt gave him permission to do that. None
Speaker 1: of that correspondence has ever been found. That's the story
Speaker 1: of the Teddy Bear and a hundred and twenty years later,
Speaker 1: the name for a small stuffed bear is as strong
Speaker 1: as ever. And when you get down to its roots,
Speaker 1: the great nerve and Ingenuity of Holt Collier created it.
Speaker 1: Here's how the nineteen o two hunt ended, because they
Speaker 1: kept hunting. And again they hunt all over the place
Speaker 1: that they ride and ranged for long distances and they
Speaker 1: killed three bear on this hunt, none of which are
Speaker 1: killed by Roosevelt. But in the community hunt like this
Speaker 1: would have been considered anybody that gets the big game.
Speaker 1: It's considered a success for everybody. But Roosevelt didn't pick
Speaker 1: up them and so he resented it. But he says,
Speaker 1: I'm coming back to the south next year and we're
Speaker 1: gonna get us a trophy bear. Well, it ended up
Speaker 1: being five years. Roosevelt would return in nineteen o seven. However,
Speaker 1: a lot happened on this five a hunt. Holt confessed
Speaker 1: to killing james a king and he told Roosevelt how
Speaker 1: many kids he had. Remember, I was gonna surprise you
Speaker 1: with the details of this. Here it is, and Roosevelt
Speaker 1: actually wrote this in a letter to a buddy about
Speaker 1: halt collier. But Roosevelt asked Collier if he had any
Speaker 1: children and halt started counting on his fingers and said
Speaker 1: I've got fourteen children. Roosevelt acted astonished and Holt said no, sir, no, sir,
Speaker 1: all of them ain't my wives. She had to and
Speaker 1: the balance I got just frolican around. End of quote.
Speaker 1: Here's another interesting look into halt from the recordings of
Speaker 1: the hunt. Judge Jacob Dixon, who was there, wrote of
Speaker 1: the conversations around the campfire. He said, quote. Every night
Speaker 1: we set up later around the fire, black and white,
Speaker 1: a large company of us, and were regaled with hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing stories illustrate native of the days before, during
Speaker 1: and after the civil war, with the exception of the
Speaker 1: famous Robert Eager Bobo Callier, had killed more bear than
Speaker 1: any man in that country. He was a good rack
Speaker 1: and tour in a quaint, homely sportsmanlike way and by
Speaker 1: his vivid and intense descriptions, aroused and sustained unflagging interest.
Speaker 1: End of quote. Holt was a magnetic yet humble man.
Speaker 1: Here's the short version of Roosevelt's second bear hunt in
Speaker 1: the delta in nineteen o seven. It involves another famous
Speaker 1: bear hunter and it wasn't until nineteen o seven. First
Speaker 1: of all, this hunt, the second hunt. His host was
Speaker 1: John Parker down in Louisiana and he arrived there on
Speaker 1: a riverboat and this was a fourteen day hunt. And
Speaker 1: then by a whole car, and Roosevelt insists on having
Speaker 1: a whole car. You're on this hunt. The whole car
Speaker 1: you's Ad Roosevelt's specific invitation. But Ben Lilly, who's pretty
Speaker 1: famous outdoors, when at the time John Parker gets in
Speaker 1: Lily to be the leader of this hunt in nine
Speaker 1: seven and famous bear hunter with hounds, famous bear hunter,
Speaker 1: you know, goofy old coot accorded to Roosevelt and a
Speaker 1: religious fanatic. And somehow the metcalfs from Greenville come down
Speaker 1: the met cast and hope were real close, they were
Speaker 1: real tight. Long Story Short, after two days they decided
Speaker 1: there aren't any bear in the area and they moved
Speaker 1: to a place called Bear Lake. They go down to
Speaker 1: bear lake and they hunt for twelve more days. Roosevelt
Speaker 1: never gets his bear. Being literally stays in charge of
Speaker 1: the hunt the whole time until finally metcalts and whole
Speaker 1: carriers are talking to the side and the met casts
Speaker 1: are convinced that Roosevelt just needs to put whole carry
Speaker 1: in charge of his hunt he'll have a bear. So
Speaker 1: they go over there and they make that suggestion to
Speaker 1: him and roosevelts bites and he says, okay, Mr Lily,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but we're gonna put we're gonna give hold.
Speaker 1: I'm only here for one more day and we're gonna
Speaker 1: let Holt have his chance. So they put Holt in
Speaker 1: charge arch the next day, the very next morning, and
Speaker 1: hold it's really kind of funny when you think about it.
Speaker 1: He looks at the President says, you're gonna ride with me.
Speaker 1: You know, child. They've been putting him on a stand
Speaker 1: all these days. He says you're gonna ride with me.
Speaker 1: You know, child, you can handle this. And so he
Speaker 1: did and he got finally, he got to hunt in
Speaker 1: the true hunter fashion that he wanted to, by following
Speaker 1: the dogs, chasing the bear on horseback. And sure enough
Speaker 1: they got a trophy bear, a larger bear than the
Speaker 1: one that they had killed in the night two. That's
Speaker 1: why you have that card from Roosevelt to Holt saying
Speaker 1: thank you. So he very finally, finally, he got his
Speaker 1: bear and Holt was the hero. The whole was the hero.
Speaker 1: Ben Lily was an incredible and eccentric hunter who deserves
Speaker 1: his own burglary series, but this time Holt and the
Speaker 1: metcalfs hit the home run. Roosevelt would say, quote, he'd
Speaker 1: never met a man so indifferent to fatigue and hardship
Speaker 1: as Ben Lily. Here's what Roosevelt would lay to write about.
Speaker 1: Ben Lilly quote. The morning he joined us in camp
Speaker 1: he had come on foot through the thick woods, followed
Speaker 1: by his two dogs, and he had neither eaten nor
Speaker 1: drunk for twenty four hours, for he did not like
Speaker 1: to drink the swamp water. It had rained hard throughout
Speaker 1: the night and he had no shelter, no rubber coat,
Speaker 1: nothing but the clothes he was wearing, and the ground
Speaker 1: was too wet for him to lie on. So he
Speaker 1: perched in a crooked tree in the beating rain, much
Speaker 1: as if he had been a wild Turkey. But he
Speaker 1: was not in the least tired when he struck camp,
Speaker 1: and though he slept an hour after breakfast, it was
Speaker 1: chiefly because he had nothing else to do. Inasmuch as
Speaker 1: it was Sunday, on which day he never hunted nor labored,
Speaker 1: he could run through the woods like a buck. Was
Speaker 1: Far more enduring and quite as indifferent to whether. Though
Speaker 1: he was over fifty years old, he had trapped and
Speaker 1: hunted throughout almost all the half century of his life,
Speaker 1: and on the trail of game he was as sure
Speaker 1: as his own hounds. His observations are wild creatures were
Speaker 1: singularly close and accurate. He was particularly fond of the
Speaker 1: chase of the bear, which he followed by himself with
Speaker 1: one or two dogs. Often he would be on the
Speaker 1: trail of his quarry for days at a time, lying
Speaker 1: down to sleep wherever night overtook him. End of quote.
Speaker 1: I now want to read you what Roosevelt wrote about
Speaker 1: Hulk Collyer and the metcalf brothers. This is from miners
Speaker 1: book quote. Late in the evening of the same day,
Speaker 1: we were joined by two gentlemen to whom we owed
Speaker 1: the success of our hunt. They were Messrs Clive and Harley,
Speaker 1: metcalf planners from Mississippi, men in the prime of their life,
Speaker 1: thorough woodsman and hunters, Skilled Marksman and utterly fearless horsemen.
Speaker 1: For a quarter of a century they had hunted bear
Speaker 1: and deer with horse and Hound and were masters of
Speaker 1: the art. They brought with him their pack of bear hounds.
Speaker 1: Only one, however, being a thoroughly staunch and seasoned veteran.
Speaker 1: The pack was under the immediate control of a Negro Hunter,
Speaker 1: Holt Collier, in his own ways as remarkable a character
Speaker 1: as Ben Lily. He was a man of sixty and
Speaker 1: could neither read nor write, but had all the dignity
Speaker 1: of an African chief and for a half century had
Speaker 1: been a bear hunter, having killed or assisted in killing
Speaker 1: over three thousand bears. He had been born a slave
Speaker 1: on the hinds plantation his father and the old man
Speaker 1: when he was born, having been the body servant and
Speaker 1: Cook of Old General Hinds, as he called him, when
Speaker 1: the latter fought under Jackson at New Orleans. When ten
Speaker 1: years old, Holt had been taken on the horse behind
Speaker 1: his young master, the hinds of that day on a
Speaker 1: bear hunt when he killed his first bear. In the
Speaker 1: civil war, he had not only followed his master to
Speaker 1: battle as his body servant, but acted under him as
Speaker 1: a sharpshooter against the union soldiers. After the war. He
Speaker 1: can you need, to stay with his master into the
Speaker 1: latter died and had then been adopted by the met
Speaker 1: cast and he felt that he had brought them up
Speaker 1: and treated them with the mixture of affection and grumbling
Speaker 1: respect which an old nurse shows towards the lad who
Speaker 1: has ceased. Being a child, the two metcalfs and Holt
Speaker 1: understood one another thoroughly and understood their hounds and the
Speaker 1: game their hounds followed almost as thoroughly. End of quote.
Speaker 1: We haven't said a lot about the metcalfs, but they
Speaker 1: were as close of friends as Holt ever had. Here's
Speaker 1: minor with the icing on the cake of the presidential
Speaker 1: bear hunts. So it was clear that Roosevelt had a
Speaker 1: ton of respect for the Holt Collier. He corresponded with him,
Speaker 1: he ended up giving him a gift. This is a
Speaker 1: great immage and and I know that your listeners can't
Speaker 1: see the images, but there's a photograph here in the
Speaker 1: in January nineteen o eight Roosevelt sent to whole collier
Speaker 1: model winchester as a gift and he sent one to
Speaker 1: clive metcalf and he sent one to Harley met calf,
Speaker 1: who were both on that hunt. Yeah, so there's a picture.
Speaker 1: There's there's four men hold collier in the middle. They're
Speaker 1: all holding guns. There's two little kids holding guns. There
Speaker 1: is a live black bear at the feet cup, but
Speaker 1: there's also presumably bare dogs standing around unleashed. Those boys
Speaker 1: are being raised properly. I Love I love that picture
Speaker 1: is taken in the front yard of the House that
Speaker 1: I met Jane Weathers and she's one of the first
Speaker 1: people play interviews. She was ninety five years old, I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, and she she's one who felt in a
Speaker 1: lot of she knew hold. She was a young woman,
Speaker 1: not a child. She's a young woman when she knew
Speaker 1: hold as an older man and she was there when
Speaker 1: that picture was taken. But that bare cub. She tells
Speaker 1: me she remembers when Holk caught that cub. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you the full circle here. The book kinds holp
Speaker 1: caught that cub and brought it into those boys as
Speaker 1: a pit because that cold grow bigger, grew bigger and
Speaker 1: bigger and they cage and they couldn't cage it anymore.
Speaker 1: So when they got to be too big to manage,
Speaker 1: they contacted the Memphis Zoo and said we've got a
Speaker 1: bear for you and it became the first bear at
Speaker 1: the Memphis Zoo. The bear same barriers in it. For
Speaker 1: my little daughter asked me where the teddy bear camera.
Speaker 1: Now that's some good stuff. Old Miner walked us right
Speaker 1: into a great full circle ending to shade minor Ferris
Speaker 1: Buchanan to Shay. If you remember miner's curiosity about the
Speaker 1: teddy bear all started at the Memphis Zoo. In here's
Speaker 1: some clean up details. Two of the presidential guns are
Speaker 1: known about, but the whereabouts of Holtz Gunn are unknown.
Speaker 1: On another interesting note, in December nineteen O A, Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt invited many of us friends across the country to
Speaker 1: the White House for a presidential wild game dinner and
Speaker 1: Hult Collier was invited, but he politely declined. Also, Holt
Speaker 1: was later invited to Africa with Roosevelt, but he also declined.
Speaker 1: And just clean up stuff, Holt killed his last bear
Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven at the age of sixty six. Now
Speaker 1: we're going to move into the final chapter of Holt's life.
Speaker 1: When hold was an elderly man, he had a house
Speaker 1: in town and hold was slowing down. The money was
Speaker 1: not coming in because of the hunting ground trunk, but
Speaker 1: he he made a lot of money and I pointed
Speaker 1: out in the book that he would he would have
Speaker 1: after a hunting season he'd have thousand dollars in his
Speaker 1: pocket cash. Well, most white people didn't have that kind
Speaker 1: of money. So he was well known to make a
Speaker 1: lot of money and at some point in time one
Speaker 1: of the met cafs he he aligned himself with the
Speaker 1: Prom in a medcalf family. He helped them out a lot.
Speaker 1: They helped him out a lot. But somebody talked him
Speaker 1: intus when he had a handful of money, said you
Speaker 1: need to buy a piece of land or buy a house.
Speaker 1: Built a house, and so he did in town. It's
Speaker 1: still there. Here's Hank with more about Holtz House in Greenville, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: Holt's house in Greenville on Broadway Street is quite unique
Speaker 1: in that it is in an area where mostly black
Speaker 1: workers lived and worked, one far from Mr Percy's house
Speaker 1: and is on the way to the medcalf house side
Speaker 1: in the country at newstead planation. It's the only house
Speaker 1: in that area that's a two store house and there's
Speaker 1: a reason for that. The whole knew what that river
Speaker 1: could do and he'd seen it do it too many times.
Speaker 1: So when he built his house he made sure that
Speaker 1: he had a second store on his house and it's
Speaker 1: still standing up there really, so holds house is still there.
Speaker 1: Hold House is still there. There is a story that
Speaker 1: I have no reason not to believe that it's true.
Speaker 1: The Metcalf Boys, which I'm sure you they hunted. They
Speaker 1: hunted with him they hunted together and they were big
Speaker 1: owners into the, shall I say, the Commercial National Bank,
Speaker 1: which is now hold didn't drink, but holt would go
Speaker 1: across the river and bring whiskey back over here and
Speaker 1: see to it that his friends had it whenever they
Speaker 1: wanted it. And he might have. He might have bootlegged
Speaker 1: a little bit on the side, you know, selling, selling
Speaker 1: that whiskey. And the story goes that he had just
Speaker 1: put a new roof on his house, Cyprus, shake shingle roof,
Speaker 1: and the metcalf bars were on the back up on
Speaker 1: the way back up north to metcalf MISSSIPPI, where new
Speaker 1: stead plantation was, and they stopped by Holts House, possibly
Speaker 1: to have a little nil, and they noticed that he
Speaker 1: had a new shingle roof on his house and one
Speaker 1: of the met caves. I asked him where you gotta?
Speaker 1: Is that what he needed to he had to have
Speaker 1: that new roof on. Where did you get all the
Speaker 1: money for that that? I went down to your bang
Speaker 1: bar that money. Your bankle owed me the money and uh,
Speaker 1: I think it was. Asked how much was still old
Speaker 1: on that roof and hope probably told him and he
Speaker 1: asked him to bring one of the over shingles in there,
Speaker 1: and he did and he wrote on that jingle with
Speaker 1: his knife, paid in full and signed it. Take this
Speaker 1: down to the bank and that I got a roof
Speaker 1: pace is essentially a check. The metcalf family were significant
Speaker 1: players in Holt's life. If you could pick ninety years
Speaker 1: to be alive on planet earth, it would be hard
Speaker 1: to argue that the nineties that halt was here, that
Speaker 1: he probably didn't see more change than any human generation ever.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting to me when you think about the
Speaker 1: span of human life and that we're all put on
Speaker 1: earth for like a certain time period. From this date
Speaker 1: to this date, being born in eighteen forty six and
Speaker 1: passing away in nineteen thirty six is an incredible span
Speaker 1: in in terms of social development, technology, all the things
Speaker 1: that happened. I mean going from, you know, pre civil
Speaker 1: war all the way to the to the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: here in America. I mean it's a pretty incredible I
Speaker 1: mean you could you go back and say from seventeen
Speaker 1: thirty six to eighteen forty six, I mean life was
Speaker 1: about the same and then, you know, even past that.
Speaker 1: But like that period of time was pretty wild. I
Speaker 1: make the point at the very end of the book,
Speaker 1: at that very point, that hold was born and raised
Speaker 1: at a time when horsepower was the only power there was.
Speaker 1: In Ninety six when he died, you know, they were
Speaker 1: Hitler was in charge in in Germany and World War
Speaker 1: Two was on, even World War Two and nuclear age
Speaker 1: was right around the corner. He lived in an amazing
Speaker 1: and he put a lot of life in his ninety years.
Speaker 1: I'll give you that. You know, it's amazing he lived
Speaker 1: ninety years. So, as I started this book knowing nothing
Speaker 1: about the whole collier other than just his small amounts
Speaker 1: about his reputation, you know, I'm reading and he's twenty
Speaker 1: years old and then he's thirty four years old and
Speaker 1: then he's fifty six years old and I'm kind of
Speaker 1: looking at the amount of pages left in the book
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, this guy, there's no way that he's
Speaker 1: gonna be an old man, like he's gonna die at
Speaker 1: age sixty and man, I was shocked and thrilled when
Speaker 1: you see that he lived to be ninety, which is
Speaker 1: is such an incredible thing. Daniel Boone, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite characters in American history, lived to be eighty six
Speaker 1: and part of the reason he was so famous was
Speaker 1: he just most of his contemporaries died when they were fifty.
Speaker 1: You know, he just had a long span of life,
Speaker 1: and I mean I see that and and hold he
Speaker 1: he covered a lot of ground. I want to move
Speaker 1: to an interesting part of whole legacy, and it has
Speaker 1: to do with the famed American author William Faulkner, who
Speaker 1: was a Nobel Prize laureate and widely considered the greatest
Speaker 1: southern writer of all time. He was born in eight
Speaker 1: nineties seven and died in nineteen sixty two, which would
Speaker 1: have been prime time for Holt's regional legacy to be known.
Speaker 1: And Faulkner was from and spent most of his life
Speaker 1: in Mississippi. Faulkner is known for his quote characterization of
Speaker 1: southern characters, including fiercely intelligent people who are dwelling behind
Speaker 1: the facades of good old boys and simpletons. Minor has
Speaker 1: something to say about this. You know, his immediate legacy
Speaker 1: that I think about as a William Faulkner's story. But
Speaker 1: there's no question that the SAM father's character in several
Speaker 1: of the faulkner books, particularly the bear go down Moses
Speaker 1: who Kaya was the inspiration for Sam Father, no question
Speaker 1: in my mind about it. Faulkner's second home was Greenville, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: Here's the excerpt from William Faulkner's the bear. Let's see
Speaker 1: if you can make the connection. The old man of
Speaker 1: seventy who had been in Egro for two generations now
Speaker 1: but whose face and bearing were still those of the
Speaker 1: chickasaw chief who had been his father, and he was glad.
Speaker 1: He was old. He had no children, no people, none
Speaker 1: of his blood anywhere above earth that he would ever
Speaker 1: meet again. And even if he were to, he could
Speaker 1: not have touched it spoken to it because for seventy
Speaker 1: years now he had to be a Negro. It was
Speaker 1: almost over now and he was glad, but still the
Speaker 1: woods would be his mistress and his wife. End of quote.
Speaker 1: This is from Miner's book halt Collier. Quote. Pete Johnson,
Speaker 1: one of the neighborhood children who knew callier for many
Speaker 1: years and who often drove him when the old man
Speaker 1: was too feeble to walk, described Holt's complexion as dark olive,
Speaker 1: similar to that of a native American Indian, and similarly,
Speaker 1: Harris Dixon referred to collier as a yellow man. Johnson
Speaker 1: strongly believed that hulk all your had native American blood
Speaker 1: and that his lineage would be obvious to a careful observer.
Speaker 1: The reader can draw his or her own conclusions by
Speaker 1: studying the von Dresser portrait rendered in Nineteen thirty five.
Speaker 1: Collier's bloodline, of course, cannot be confirmed and it seems
Speaker 1: of little consequence and the research of Collier's life, until
Speaker 1: a reference is found in the regimental history of the
Speaker 1: Ninth Texas Cavalry of an Indian boy riding with Captain
Speaker 1: Perry Evans Company, who raced horses in the company's popular
Speaker 1: equestrian contests. End of quote. It's clear to see where
Speaker 1: minor is getting that this Sam father's character of Faulkner's
Speaker 1: is based upon halt Collyer. I now want to read
Speaker 1: another excerpt from Miner's book, and it's about the latter
Speaker 1: years of Holtz life, and it's pretty sad. Quote. In
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty eight, largely because of the flood and the
Speaker 1: economic disruptions it caused, many African Americans began leaving Washington
Speaker 1: County for better opportunities in the north. Callier saw many
Speaker 1: of his people leave the area. From the effects of
Speaker 1: the flood, the storm and the loss of his friends,
Speaker 1: callier fell into a state of despair from which he
Speaker 1: never completely recovered. His wife, Frances, earned a meager income
Speaker 1: as a housekeeper, but holt was too feeble to provide
Speaker 1: any income other than his pension of two hundred dollars annually.
Speaker 1: He had for years collected corn chucks from the area plantations,
Speaker 1: which he sold to a stable. He also collected dried
Speaker 1: bones which he sold as fertilizer, and on occasion he
Speaker 1: would train and sell a hunting dog. One dog he
Speaker 1: sold to John and Nathan Adams for thirty dollars and
Speaker 1: it would not hunt. When the boys returned, the dog
Speaker 1: hold explained that his ears had to be twisted with
Speaker 1: pliers and he would then take to the briars. Callier
Speaker 1: also made a little money during prohibition by supplying Arkansas
Speaker 1: Corn Whiskey to his friends who did not want to
Speaker 1: deal with bootleggers across the river. Holt, Collier's confederate servants
Speaker 1: pension was successfully renewed in nineteen sixteen. In the ninety eight,
Speaker 1: Collier was approved for a pension from the state of Mississippi,
Speaker 1: not as a servant, but as a confederate soldier. No
Speaker 1: longer was the award based on Holt Service for his
Speaker 1: former master. He was recognized as a combatant for his
Speaker 1: service in the ninth Texas Calvary. He is the only
Speaker 1: known African American classified as a combatant by any of
Speaker 1: the former confederate states. End of quote. It's sad for
Speaker 1: me to see a man like Holt having a rough
Speaker 1: ending to his life and to become depressed. That's really
Speaker 1: sad after we know all that we know about him.
Speaker 1: It's well documented that many African Americans were in the
Speaker 1: confederate army, but at the time of this research Holt
Speaker 1: was the only African American classified as a combatant. The
Speaker 1: others in the confederate army were doing stuff other than fighting.
Speaker 1: It's complicated because others did fight but they weren't officially
Speaker 1: registered as combatants. I just want to make that clear.
Speaker 1: The philosophical premise of the confederacy was that if the
Speaker 1: blacks were good enough to fight, they were good enough
Speaker 1: to be independent people who deserved civil rights. So they
Speaker 1: were denied official classification as combatants. But Somehow Holt slipped
Speaker 1: through the cracks and he had a knack for doing that.
Speaker 1: Holt died in nineteen thirty six at the age of ninety.
Speaker 1: His third wife, Frances, had died at the age of
Speaker 1: forty four, five years before him, in nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 1: of an aneurysm. The last several years of his life,
Speaker 1: Holt almost went blind. Death is rarely noble and sadly
Speaker 1: it was not noble for wholt Collier. He died a
Speaker 1: poor man and was buried in an unmarked grave in Greenville, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: James a king had that big monum when I showed
Speaker 1: you a picture of from the day he was buried
Speaker 1: totally in a unmarked grave. died in nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 1: He's like he was in an unmarked grave for sixty
Speaker 1: year until we put this too, we put this headstone.
Speaker 1: So what year was that had? Two Thousand Four. Wow.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like that was a result of this
Speaker 1: book and bringing some attention to him? Absolutely it is.
Speaker 1: Now we've we've, we've breaked it. It's a monument. Now
Speaker 1: we it's it's in an enclosed gate. Many people in
Speaker 1: groups were involved in getting Holtz headstone and turning his
Speaker 1: grave into a monument, but two of the men that
Speaker 1: can be given a lot of credit are Hank Berdine
Speaker 1: and minor Ferris Buchanan. There is something else I haven't
Speaker 1: told you. I'll let hank tell you. James Come in
Speaker 1: with Wildlife Mississippi Center, Thad Cochrane, and decided to do
Speaker 1: something with these wildlife refuges around here and pull them
Speaker 1: all into one complex called the Theodore Roosevelt Wildlife Refuge system,
Speaker 1: and they had several thousand acres that had just come
Speaker 1: into the system that they named the whole call your
Speaker 1: wildlife refuge, which is right out number twelve highway over
Speaker 1: here there's some farm land that had been cleared but
Speaker 1: had gone back into tree been planted back into trees
Speaker 1: and it's coming back on pretty strong now. It is
Speaker 1: the only refuge in the entire United States refuge, federal
Speaker 1: refuge system that's named after a man of African descent.
Speaker 1: Mhm To me that's pretty strong. Uh. We've got a
Speaker 1: lot of famous black people done a lot of wonderful
Speaker 1: and famous things, but there's only one that has a
Speaker 1: wildlife refuge, of federal wildlife refuge named after him, and
Speaker 1: that's whole cart, the whole call National Wildlife Refuge was
Speaker 1: established in two thousand four, two years after miner's book
Speaker 1: was published. The refuge is open to the public for
Speaker 1: hunting and outdoor recreation. Here's minor asking a question that
Speaker 1: I had from the beginning, and the answer is not flashy.
Speaker 1: Everybody always wants to know whine in the movie been
Speaker 1: made about this guy, and this will given an example
Speaker 1: of why. It's just nobody in Hollywood wants to put
Speaker 1: a black man riding with a confederate outfit. It's so
Speaker 1: politically incorrect. That's all I can come up with. I
Speaker 1: mean there's so many. This is such a wonderful story
Speaker 1: for the big screen. I mean, if you had to
Speaker 1: put all the great characters in American history out there,
Speaker 1: I put him right up there with the best of them.
Speaker 1: Holt never really fit into anyone's mold. Jonathan Wilkins is
Speaker 1: an African American hunter and guide from the Delta. He
Speaker 1: is a Holt Collier Aficionado who helped give us some
Speaker 1: insight into life in part one and two. I wanted
Speaker 1: to end this series by asking him how WHOLP Call
Speaker 1: Your story had inspired him personally. Here's what he said,
Speaker 1: you know. So for me, what it would inspire is
Speaker 1: trying to live a life with as few blockades as possible,
Speaker 1: trying to fully realize myself. You know, ultimately you're dealing
Speaker 1: with a person who, because of the circumstances of his birth,
Speaker 1: should not have had the influence and impact that he did,
Speaker 1: and he did so because he refused to internalize all
Speaker 1: the messaging about who he was from outside. Right, and
Speaker 1: that had to be from a very young age. Right,
Speaker 1: for a ten year old child to have the hood spa,
Speaker 1: to go out into this American southern jungle and kill
Speaker 1: a bear with a rudimentary weapon and then get to
Speaker 1: the point where he's credited with killing three housing black bears,
Speaker 1: that's a person who doesn't allow external limitations to dictate
Speaker 1: what their life can be. For him to be able
Speaker 1: to stand on equal footing with one of the most
Speaker 1: influential political figures in the history of this country and
Speaker 1: instruct him and, you know, probably scold him. Man, I
Speaker 1: told you to be sitting right here and you couldn't
Speaker 1: wait for a sandwich and you got my dogs killed.
Speaker 1: You know like that's a person who doesn't let external
Speaker 1: limitations dictate the quality and the substance of their life
Speaker 1: and it's not. It's this isn't like a this isn't
Speaker 1: a pull yourself up by your bootstraps trope because, like
Speaker 1: we keep using the word extraordinary, right, this is a
Speaker 1: guy who is beyond the Pale. But you know, as
Speaker 1: human beings we look towards the extraordinary, we look towards
Speaker 1: the outliers to find inspiration for the fact that almost
Speaker 1: everybody is ordinary, but to realize that we all have
Speaker 1: the ability to be extraordinary at some time or in
Speaker 1: some place or in some instance. William Faulkner wrote of
Speaker 1: the fictional character Sam father's quote like an old lion
Speaker 1: or bear in a cage. He was born in a
Speaker 1: cage and he has been in it his whole life.
Speaker 1: He knows nothing else. By external measures, Holt seemed to
Speaker 1: thrive in the postbellum south and will never know his
Speaker 1: deep motivations, his regrets and the shackles that the race
Speaker 1: barriers placed on his life. Media Cherry picked the highlights
Speaker 1: that America was interested in at the time, and that's
Speaker 1: how the game works, and those interviews are the primary
Speaker 1: source for the material that we have. What I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say is that this story is a lot more
Speaker 1: complicated than just a guy who seemingly had this adventurous
Speaker 1: and wildlife. His life was filled with tragedy and I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just want to tell his story. I'll
Speaker 1: end this whole series with minor's words from his book. Quote.
Speaker 1: Holt Collier is entitled to a place in the history
Speaker 1: and heritage of the United States alongside the many courageous
Speaker 1: pioneers and hunters of fame and legend. His Service to
Speaker 1: the confederacy will no doubt be debated by those of
Speaker 1: both races who prefer not to believe it. His contribution
Speaker 1: as a pioneer to the opening of the Mississippi Delta
Speaker 1: wilderness cannot be ignored. He is a central figure in
Speaker 1: the story of the Teddy Bear. His courage, tenacity, honesty,
Speaker 1: integrity and independence should be an inspiration to all Americans.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to bear grease. I've
Speaker 1: been deeply moved by the story of Hulk Collier. You
Speaker 1: can buy Minor Ferris Buchanan's book Hulk Collier at Hulk
Speaker 1: Collier Dot Com and be sure to check out all
Speaker 1: of our bear grease merchant on the meat eator DOT COM.
Speaker 1: And do me a favor by sharing this series with
Speaker 1: a friend this week. Long live the beast and long
Speaker 1: live the legacy of our brother, hulk callier.