WEBVTT - Ep 72: Holt Collier - The Teddy Roosevelt Hunt, Part 3 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:08.600 M ultimately, you're dealing with a person who, because of 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:11.639 the circumstances of his birth, should not have had the 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.160 influence and impact that he did, and he did so 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:21.119 because he refused to internalize all the messaging about who 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.520 he was from outside. This week on the Bargrease podcast 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:28.920 we're on our third and final episode in our series 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.640 on the extraordinary life of the former slave, confederate soldier, 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:37.479 bear hunter and Mississippi Native Hulk Collier. Many believe he 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:39.920 deserves to sit in the saddle with the greats of 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:44.840 American history, but his life is stacked deep in controversy, murder, 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:49.760 fortunes won and lost, an unrivaled adventure. We've tracked the 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:52.600 data points we have on hold, but like a boar 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:57.360 bear being pursued by hounds, he's difficult to course. This 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:01.000 episode is dedicated to his famous Ted bear hunt when 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:07.280 he guided President Theodore Roosevelt, and will discuss Holtz lasting legacy. 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:12.160 He lived in bold opposition to the trends of the age. 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.760 He was a black man that overcame, endured and thrived 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:20.200 in the south in a dangerous period. But even in 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.399 the midst of victory, his life leaves us with a 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:29.840 tragic aftertaste. The story of Holtz life exemplifies core bear grease. 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.160 It's the finest renderings, the choice meat of the ACORN, 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.720 the flash of the flashiest mule, the crescendo trill of 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.200 the barred owl. It's the Black Panther of all Black 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.680 Panther Stories, and I'm honored to tell it to you. 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.160 I doubt you're gonna want to miss this one. And 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:51.280 we rides into camp and he've got the bar tied 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:53.240 in the back of his horse. He said, did the 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.560 President Kill that baron? He said no, but if he 0:01:55.560 --> 0:02:08.679 had followed my instructions he would have. My name is 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.320 Clay Nukelem and this is the bear grease podcast, where 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.600 we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.000 unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:25.239 who lived their lives close to the land presented by 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:30.440 F hf gear, American made, purpose built hunting and fishing 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.000 gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:44.600 we explore. He lived his life from day one all 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:49.120 the way through as somebody you took seriously. White men 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.560 sought him out in the deep South in that time 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.520 for shought him out not only white men but the 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.680 president United States, and I'll talk him on two hunts, 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:04.040 not just one. If there's one thing we've learned about 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.800 Hulk Collyer, it's that he was a man to be 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:10.880 taken seriously on this third and final episode. For any 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.520 of you hillbillies who are just getting here, here's the summary. 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.560 Hulk Collyer was born a slave in Mississippi in eighteen 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.520 forty six he fought in the confederate army. He killed 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.840 two white men and shot another one after the civil war, 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.440 but wasn't convicted. He worked as a cowboy in Texas. 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.600 He served as a deputy sheriff. He gambled like a sailor. 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.720 He never drank a drop of alcohol. He had three 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.440 wives and at least fourteen children, which I hadn't told 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:42.600 you yet. He had a baseball team named after him. 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.640 He was incredibly loyal to his friends and he had 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:49.680 close relationships with men of great power, and he spent 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:52.160 thirty six years as a professional bear hunter in the 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:57.680 Mississippi Delta. But his life wasn't all guns and roses. 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.280 The backdrop of his life was the systemic racism of 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:06.400 the day. Holt lived amid undeniable racial hierarchy, even though 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.080 many were trying to remedy the human tragedy of slavery 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:14.160 in its generational wake of destruction. I don't know how 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.080 we got here, but this is just where we've been found, 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.880 in the midst of the dirty story of humanity, and 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:25.839 Holtz life is of great interest for examination and inspiration. 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:32.360 Man Do I love this story. So Holt has been 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.760 a professional market bear hunter since eighteen seventy. We learned 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.920 that on episode two, selling meat to hungry labor markets 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.960 in the south. But in eighteen ninety he became a 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.600 sport hunting outfitter. In nineteen o two Holt was fifty 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:52.520 six years old. Here's our old friend author, minor Ferris Buchanan, 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.760 who wrote the only book on Holt Collier, called Holt Collier, 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.880 and he's going to introduce us to the famous ninth 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:04.840 Teeno to bear hunt with President Theodore Roosevelt. So he 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.360 starts out doing this and he does this for thirty 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.600 years until finally in the nineteen o two when Theodore 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.040 Roosevelt is wants to go on a on a Delta 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.400 hunt for a black bear through certain contacts of the 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:21.560 Illinois Central Railroad contact of Le Roy personally, where a 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.360 persony recommends, so they finally get whole. Caryer is going 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:26.640 to lead this hunt. That's in addition to the hunting 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.120 experience he had prior to eighteen seventy. Had thirty or 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.240 two years of experience. He knew that Delta better than 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:35.560 anybody and what's hard for us today to envision was 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.760 the reputation that the south had for bear hunting with hound. 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.280 The reason Theodore Roosevelt even knew about that this hunt 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.400 existed was because in the eighteen nineties there are many 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:50.800 magazines and publications that talked about southern hunting and Theodore 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.800 Roosevelt read them all and he wanted to go on 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.040 a deep south black bear hunt more than anything morning. 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.040 He wanted to go to Africa, he wanted to go 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.120 on one of these hunts, sisting on it. So he 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.960 comes down in nineteen o two by train and they 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.359 have a five day hunt. Who Ki you're when he 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.560 killed his first bear right outside of Greenville? He was 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.039 ten years old. He shot it off of the back porch. 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:17.320 So that would have been eighteen fifty six. By nineteen 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.760 O two, when Theodore Roosevelt comes down here to hunt. 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.720 Who can't find any beary in Washington county's got to 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.719 go all the way down to Sharky County, fifty miles away. 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.200 He's got to go way out into the willerness on 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.920 the Sunflower River, fourteen miles due east of the railroad track. 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:36.440 It's it's a very difficult place to get to and 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.119 that's where the hunt took places. Century they had killed 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.680 out a lot of bears from the market hunting and 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:45.960 market hunting and by then, you know, the area had 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.720 been settled. You had railroads in here by nineteen o two, 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.120 I think. I think recreational hunting had taken a lot 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.560 of as well. The early nineteen hundreds were a grim 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:02.160 time for North American wildlife, and old Americanus wasn't exempt. 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.200 They were pushed to the remote interiors of their range. 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.000 Roosevelt was keen to the diminishing southern Black Bear in 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.040 this unique style of hunting and he wanted in before 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:17.320 it was gone. Roosevelt had been on a transformative journey 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:21.320 on his ideology of wild places and wild beasts. In 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.000 eighteen eighty three he went on a bison hunt in 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:29.040 Montana and it was said, quote, that he danced enthusiastically 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:33.400 around the buffalo to celebrate his success. End of quote. 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.120 This was after he'd killed a Buffalo, but on a 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.160 later bison hunt in eighteen eighty nine, when the herds 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:44.760 dwindled to extremely low numbers, he wrote. Quote. For several 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.480 minutes I watched the great beast as they grazed. Mixed 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.480 with eager excitement of the hunter was a certain half 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:56.360 melancholy feeling as I gazed on these bison, themselves part 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.880 of the last remnant of a doomed in nearly vanished race. 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.120 Few indeed are the men who now have, or evermore 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:08.160 shall have, the chance of seeing the mightiest of American 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:12.240 beasts and all his wild vigor, surrounded by the tremendous 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.800 desolation of his far off mountain home. End of quote. 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:22.120 Roosevelt exemplified the irony of the hunter's heart. He was 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:26.280 compelled to pursue and kill these animals, but a deeper 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.720 priority and conviction to save these beasts in their habitat arose. 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:36.600 In the end, Roosevelt's radical conservation ideology proved to be 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.960 an act of what some people have called American genius. 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.679 Where an animal has cultural value to the common man 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:48.240 through hunting, that animal and his habitat will be preserved. 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.000 This has worked for the last hundred and twenty years 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.440 and our prayer is that it will continue to work. 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.280 We all live in the wake of Teddy Roosevelt's boldness. 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:00.640 That's some deep watered a way through this Lee, but 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.680 I bet you a possum tattoo that holds stories of 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:10.640 the Dwindlinge Mississippi Black bears fueled Roosevelt's desire to protect wildlife. 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.760 Here's Hankberd and our buddy from the past several episodes, 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:20.200 telling us about Roosevelt arriving in Mississippi. It's real close 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.959 to smedes landing where Roosevelt got off the train. This 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.920 was a secret trip. The first time they planned it, 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.600 Roodovelt Fred was gonna turn into a picnic. So he 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:32.720 he canceled the first trip and was able to put 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.360 together another one and came down on most the size 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:39.120 of them fishes. Eleanor Central Railroad train got off its 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.560 smedes landing ready to hunt, ready to go, and there 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:47.080 were newspaper reporters that were there that were not allowed 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:50.760 to go out to camp, which was ten fifteen miles inland. 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.559 into the swamp. One or two of them was allowed 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.520 to go and there was about a whole carload of 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:01.320 secret service policeman protecting the president. But when he got 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.839 down they got ready to go. Hold Tread No, no, no, no, 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:07.839 I'M gonna be in one in charge of taking care 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.640 of the president. Rood of them said he's safer with 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.920 me than with all the policeman in Washington D C. 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.200 So they all stayed at the landing. So it was 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.840 right close in. Roosevelt and Holt just took off into 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:26.560 the wilderness together. The first thing Rhodovelt said to hold 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:28.800 collier that he came over of that train and went 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.320 straight to that black man and his hunting gear with 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:37.040 his hand outstretched, and he said you must be holp. 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.360 I hears you as a great ball hunter, and they 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.360 shook hands and with the closest of friends from that 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:47.440 point on. It was said quote. Were it not for 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:51.480 his highbrow and the distracting brilliance of his smile, Theodore 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:56.199 Roosevelt would unquestionably be an ugly man. He had small ears, 0:10:56.320 --> 0:11:00.440 heavy jowls, large wide spaced eyes of Pale and he 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.720 wore rimless glasses. His most celebrated feature where his dazzling 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.680 white teeth. Even an ugly president in nineteen o two 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.800 shaking a black man's hand wasn't normal. It might have 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.720 been a savvy political move, but I believe Roosevelt was 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.160 just being a normal human honoring another human that he 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.520 respected because of the fruit of his life. Roosevelt would 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:27.439 send Holt Christmas cards and personal letters multiple times over 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.439 the years. He would later give hold a gun as 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.720 a gift. On the first night of their hunt, Roosevelt 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:38.400 instructed everyone to call him Colonel Roosevelt and dropped the president. 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.400 He was a socially progressive leader and he took some 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.880 heat from some sectors of the press for Hob nobbing 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:49.600 with a former slave. Later in his presidency, Leroy Percy, 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:53.000 who was on this hunt, would consult with Roosevelt at 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.200 the White House about how Percy planned to effectively rebuild 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.640 the south and give social ladders to the black and 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.840 vehemently opposed the rising power of the Clue Klux Klan. 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:07.960 This gives you some insight into the kind of men 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:12.160 that Holt considered friends. This was more than a bear hunt, 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.160 though he was genuinely there to kill a bear. I 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.840 think Roosevelt wanted himself to be seen giving honor to 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.480 a man of African descent. Here's minor with the details 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.880 of the hunt that would become known as the Teddy 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:32.160 Bear Hunt. Roosevelt is gonna go fourteen miles out onto 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.040 the banks of the little sunflower river, where he's gonna 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.160 stay for five days. President United States is gonna disappear, 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.480 literally disappearing to the ozone for that length of time. 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.920 And the press, they want to go out there to 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.079 be on the campsite with him, but they won't allow that. 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.520 In fact, they armed several black men to corn off 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:55.440 this this hunt site and uh and they wanted to 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:57.960 go but they were denied, so they had to find 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:02.560 a place to stay. So any newspaper report will have 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.720 to be sent out by Telegraph, and the press are 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.839 allowed out to the hunt site. Certainly wants a day 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.880 to get to interview people and Whatnot. We need to 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.000 understand the players on this hunt and the press is 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.360 a major player. It's important to understand the role because 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:22.000 they would be communicating with the country eagerly watching their 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:27.679 president every single day. A second player was Holt's favorite 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:33.440 fice dog. Here's Hank introducing them to us. Holt's favorite 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.360 dog was a little squirrel dog, a little fice dog 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:40.080 named Jocko. Probably didn't weigh fifteen pounds. He could not 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.280 run with the big dogs because he wasn't a big dog. 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:44.440 He won't a trailing dog or anything like. Hey, here 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:46.680 a little face dog, he let's quarrel dog, but hold 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:49.120 a door him and he played an integral part. And 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:53.080 every bear whole killed with Jocko was around, and the 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:55.280 way that hold would do it. You don't just run 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.920 into a bath that your big dogs are on with 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:02.480 a knife. That bad gonna red view. Well, when you're 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.720 a bear, bade after your trailing dogs had bade the 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:08.920 bear and the bad turn around. The right buzz is 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.439 as old now. We've been to fight this and the 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.120 dogs catch dogs. Some album would go in and attack 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:19.400 the bear. That's when hope would turn jocko loose. Jocko 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.680 was carried on his saddle and a little burlap bag 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.280 with a string tight around it with Jocko's head out 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.160 and he would tied around the Saddle Horn. Jocko saw 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:31.800 all action. He knew what was going on and when 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.400 hope would turn Jocko loose and these are inhold words. 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:40.880 Jocko will run in and Harry the bear. He would 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.000 run around and bite the ball on one side and 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.560 the ball would turn over to that side and then 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:47.960 he'd run on the other side and bite the bar 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:52.440 on the other side. And while Jocko was harrying the ball, 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:54.760 hope was running with a knife and stead him in 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.400 the hut. Killer band. And that's what happened. That's how 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:02.600 they hunted. Jocko's sounds like quite the companion. Killing the 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:05.320 bear with a knife wasn't just a macho feet but 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.760 it was an effective way to dispatch a bear without 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.360 accidentally shooting the dog, which is a real problem when 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:14.600 the bear is being made by dogs on the ground. 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.000 This might be hard to understand, but in bear hunting 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:22.360 the dogs are of highest priority. Bear hunters to this 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:26.360 day would take a bullet for their dogs. Here's minor 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:31.400 telling us about the hunt the very first night. Roosevelt 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:33.520 is all about whole car. He wants to know all 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.720 about hold. He's served in because all these wonderful stories, 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.480 and I think that's when when the hope confesses to 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:42.440 him that he had killed James, a king and a 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.320 duel in the cane brake and then he wants about 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:47.160 know about the hunt in the morning. One of the 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.720 plans and that Roosevelt did not want to sit on 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.720 a stationary stand like deer hunters. Due today all the 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.640 articles that have been written about bear hunting were chasing 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.640 the bear on horseback, being entangled in the Briars, tooting 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:05.800 the horns and calling and active through the swamps. He 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:11.360 wanted to be on the chase and uh his his hosts, however, 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:13.520 we're a great deal more timid than he was. They 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.120 were afraid that they we don't want a president to 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:19.720 get hurt on one of our hunts. So the plan 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.560 was the very next morning was for hope, to put 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.560 Theodore Roosevelt on a stationary stand, which was basically sitting 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.400 on a log. So the fellow who accompanied Theodore Roosevelt 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.000 to sit on that log was a guy named Huger foot. 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.000 And they're sitting out there and there's a log, there's 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.640 a slew of water, small pond. Immediately on the other 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:45.280 side of this slough is a stand of cane and 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:48.960 there's a game trail right across from the log where 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:53.600 it's obvious jaguars come through their cats dogs, whatever is 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.280 out there, wolves, bear come through that and they come 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:01.520 to the slough to drink. Well, he puts Roosevelt and 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.000 hear your foot on this log and give them specific 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.440 instructions not to go anywhere. He and his dogs are 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.240 gonna chase a bear. First they got to pick up 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:11.959 the cent of a bear, then they got to follow 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.600 the bed and then they gotta so they here hold 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.840 and he tells them they'll stay right where you are. 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.800 I'M gonna TRACK A bear. I'm gonna Chase the bear 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:22.760 and he's gonna come right out of that game trail 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.600 hold and they can't and I'm gonna bring him back 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.760 to this slough. That's exactly what he does. It just 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:33.320 takes a lot longer to do than they anticipated. They 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.040 sit there on that log and they hear when caryer 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:38.159 picks up the trail of the bear. They hear the 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.320 dogs and they hear them go up north and then 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.639 they hear the bear and the dogs go south and 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:46.760 then they hear him go back North again. They can't 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.160 see them, but they know they're in the distance, maybe 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.119 a quarter of a mile away, maybe half, somewhere between 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.359 them and the little Sunflyer River holsting everything, you can't 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:57.679 keep that bear from getting to the little Sunflyer River. 0:17:57.760 --> 0:17:59.480 Doesn't want to cross the river, don't want to drink 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:01.600 from the river, and then he goes all the way 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:06.200 south until it's so far away Huger Foot says that 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.600 bear must have crossed the Yazoo River. They actually think 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.480 the bed has gotten away from hope and about that 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:17.399 time they're getting hungry. They put out on that stand 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.080 about eight o'clock in the morning. It is now new. 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.280 They're hungry and Holt told him not to leave, but 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.520 they left. They ride back into camp to get a 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.440 sandwich or something to eat and as luck would have it, 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.280 about the time they leave that stand, hope turns that 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:37.720 bear around and about the time Roosevelt is eating a sandwich, 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.760 holts got that bear heading right to him and he's 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.920 behind that bear, I don't know, a hundred yards, two 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:49.840 hundred yards, and instinctively hope knows where he is and 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.560 he instinctively he knows that bear is popping his head 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:55.600 out into that Slough about it right now, and he 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.919 does not hear a gunshot and he immediately senses what 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:03.640 has happened. The president leaves the stand early to head 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.639 back for lunch. I believe Roosevelt was a tough hunter 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:08.399 and he might have stayed there if it weren't for 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:12.360 his host. Roosevelt had pleaded that the hunt numbers stay small. 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:16.399 He had written to his friend John Parker. Quote. In short, 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.760 my experience is that to try to combine a hunt 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:24.320 and a picnic generally means a poor picnic and always 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:28.440 means a spoiled hunt. Every additional man on a hunt 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.720 tends to hurt it. Of course, I am only going 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:34.399 because I want to hunt and do see that I 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:39.200 get the first bear without fail. End of quote. Roosevelt 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:41.920 was adamant that he be the first one that killed 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:45.400 a bear and he wanted to keep the hunt small. Anyway, 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.040 it really didn't turn out that way and it turned 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:51.240 into more of a picnic and the president would forever 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:56.760 regret it. Here's hank talking about Holtz log. Well, when 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.320 that Bab broke out right at that log where the 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:04.000 president was supposed to be sitting, and the president wasn't there, 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:09.159 it perturbed hope pretty bad. Well, the dogs were on 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.840 the bear and the bar started mauling the dogs and 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.480 Holt had been told that the president kills the first bear. 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:20.720 No one kills the bear before president does, or the colonel, 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.520 as President Roosevelt asked to be called, when the bear 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:27.800 was killing his dogs, and Holt knew he had to 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:32.960 do something, so he turned jocko loose. And when Jocko 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.359 ran into Mali, the baries nine and grabbed little jocko 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:41.840 and was mauling Jocko. And that is why hope clubbed 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:45.240 his gun and ran in, because if he were to 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.640 shoot the bear he might kill Jocko, his favorite dog. 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.040 He clubbed his gun and ran in screaming ball, let 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.240 go my dog, ball, let go my dog, and he 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:57.320 swung in an arc and hit the bear at the 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.960 base of the skull and basically cracked the score, stunned 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.800 to the bear. The bad drop jocko loose. He had 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:09.040 already killed Jocko and fell back into the water. I 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.280 hated to do that to you. I Tell my children 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:16.040 that owning a dog is basically planning for a sad funeral. 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:20.360 They will die and it will be sad. So Jocko 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.280 is now dead and he wouldn't be if the president 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:27.240 had been there. And Holt ain't happy. Let's step back 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:31.200 in time. Two minutes to win. Holt had just clubbed 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.480 the bear with his rifle, and I want to say 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:36.280 that this bear story was told this way by Holt, 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:40.320 as recorded by the press. This wasn't an exaggerated story 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:43.160 told a hundred years later by people who didn't know him. 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:46.680 And this bear was an older boar, weighing two D 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:48.760 and thirty five pounds and was said to be bone 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.000 skinny and he was six ft seven inches nose to tell. 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:58.600 That's a really good bear. Here's minor and the bear 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.040 stands up. Acording to Holt, I was looking straight up 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.320 at him. He's at least two FT taller than me 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:07.280 and I had the gun in my hand but I 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:11.000 couldn't shoot it because the barrel was bent. So he 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:15.000 retreated back to his horse and got his, quote unquote, 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.040 Texas rope that he had been carrying with him all 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:21.560 these years and he lasts sowed that bear and pulled it, 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:24.960 took all the slack out on a willow tree and 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:28.320 had him, had the bear tethered. We know it broke 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:30.879 his skull, cracked the skull, because we still have the 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:37.879 skull the Smithsonian Institution and uh, it's been examined, it's 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:41.280 got a crack and UH. At any rate, caller ties 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:43.720 his bear to a tree. It ain't going anywhere because 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:47.159 he's he's tied real close with Real, real short line, 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:50.440 and he sends a couple of men to the camp 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:54.159 go find the president getting well. About that time, you 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:57.760 know pretty quickly the president comes riding up with Huger 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:00.359 Foot and all the other hunters are all gathered there 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:05.080 and they say, Mr President, shoot, shoot that bear. Turn 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.959 to that tree and Roosevelt thanks about it for a second. 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:12.280 He knows those reporters are gonna be coming into camp 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:15.080 that evening and they're gonna want and if the word 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:17.119 goes out that he shot a bear that was tied 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:20.320 to a tree, it would be devastated. He just he 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:24.480 just wouldn't stand for so he refused to shoot the bear. 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:28.920 The skull of that bear is in the Smithsonian Institution 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:32.679 in Washington D C, with the cracked skull. Now that 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:40.760 is wild. I want to say a word of defense 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:44.879 for my brother Teddy Roosevelt. No doubt he calculated the 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:48.520 press in not killing the tied bear, but Roosevelt played 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:52.040 a vital role in articulating the ideas of fair chase 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:56.520 developed by his Boone and Crockett Club. Here's their definition 0:23:56.560 --> 0:24:00.240 of fair chase. Quote. Fair Chase is the ethic old, 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:05.040 sportsmanlike and lawful pursuit and taking of any free ranging 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:07.720 wild game animal in a manner that does not give 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:12.200 the hunter an improper or unfair advantage over the game animal. 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:18.080 End of quote. Shooting a tied bear is not fair chase. Now, 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:22.639 on the other hand, using dogs, however, is emphatically fair chase. 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:26.719 It's hard to kill game using dogs. I'm just saying, 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:31.639 don't be knocking hunting with hounds. Hunting with dogs is 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:35.240