Speaker 1: M should you see that pony or beyond in that
Speaker 1: corras and if you can ride that pony, then we'll
Speaker 1: give you a job. And by that time all ottle
Speaker 1: cowboards around. They heard what the strow balls shit, and
Speaker 1: they turned around snickering and laughing. Ain't nobody had been
Speaker 1: able to ride that horse? As to one horse, and
Speaker 1: the whole remutal that nobody could ride to hold shut
Speaker 1: I riding on this episode of the bear Grease podcast
Speaker 1: were on part two and our Holt call your series
Speaker 1: and we're looking into the second section of his life
Speaker 1: from the age of twenty to his mid sixties, which
Speaker 1: were defined by gunfights, cowboy in and bear hunting. Holt
Speaker 1: was a former slave turned Confederate soldier. He was acquitted
Speaker 1: of the murder of the white Man after the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and he made a lot of money as a market
Speaker 1: bear hunter in the primeval swamps of Mississippi. Holt was
Speaker 1: buddies with presidents, governors, and outlaws. He became an accomplished
Speaker 1: cowboy in Texas while running from the vigilante justice of
Speaker 1: those that wanted him hung. Holt was married three times.
Speaker 1: He was a deputy sheriff. His best dog was named Mandy,
Speaker 1: and he had a baseball team named after him, and
Speaker 1: he guided President Teddy Roosevelt on the hunt that created
Speaker 1: the global icon of the Teddy Bear. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: that on episode three. Holt Collier lived an incredible life.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't believe Holt story if it wasn't the truth.
Speaker 1: He's surrounded by controversy and irony, but one thing is
Speaker 1: for certain. He was an extraordinary and brilliant man and
Speaker 1: his legacy deserves to sit with the kings of American culture.
Speaker 1: We're in search of learning who this man was. So
Speaker 1: I really doubt you're gonna want to miss this one,
Speaker 1: because after about fifteen point a minute, Hope come walking
Speaker 1: general as he can be pretty good hard now. Mh.
Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukelem, and this is the Bear
Speaker 1: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.
Speaker 1: Presented by f HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as
Speaker 1: the places we explore. When I started my research, there
Speaker 1: was this legend of whole career. So I started my
Speaker 1: book as a novel, and I wrote, I don't wrote
Speaker 1: twelve thirteen chapters, work on it for like a year
Speaker 1: and a half. That's a year and a half work,
Speaker 1: and I've got a good plot line. I got to saying, going,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I've got a good book going
Speaker 1: in and I realized, you know, all that SAIDs it's
Speaker 1: a novel and it's based on fact, but it's fiction.
Speaker 1: I woke up one morning I realized all I'm doing
Speaker 1: is adding to the legend by writing a historical fictional
Speaker 1: whole carrier, because nobody's gonna believe this. Nobody's gonna believe
Speaker 1: when I'm right here, because it was it was true,
Speaker 1: but it's all true. But I was given dialogue that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and so I took that to manuscript
Speaker 1: and I threw in the trash. I'm gonna write historical fact.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to write a book that people would
Speaker 1: read and there would be no question that this man existed.
Speaker 1: These life events that he experienced. It happened the life
Speaker 1: of Holt Collier is unbelievable. Fiction couldn't rival the facts,
Speaker 1: and author Minor Ferris Buchanan of Jackson, Mississippi in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen nineties, realized that his book titled Holt Collier
Speaker 1: was published in two thousand two, and after teen years
Speaker 1: of research before it was published, it impacted a lot
Speaker 1: of people. I've heard about the whole call you all
Speaker 1: my life. Never knew that much about him until Miner's
Speaker 1: book came out. There was a black gentleman in town
Speaker 1: named John Johnson. John Johnson was an eighty year old
Speaker 1: black man. He's one of the best friends I've ever had.
Speaker 1: He was I shan't save my major domo, but he was.
Speaker 1: We I never went anywhere without John Johnson. And John
Speaker 1: Johnson would tell stories about the old days and growing
Speaker 1: up in Graham, and he knew Whole Collier and yeah,
Speaker 1: I was forty years old and he was eighty something
Speaker 1: years old. Oh wow. And he ended up being the
Speaker 1: best man in my wedding. And John knew Hole Callier
Speaker 1: and remembered Whole Collier seeing him and uh, seeing the
Speaker 1: little kids coming by then and crawling up, getting up
Speaker 1: on his front porch, want him to tell stories. And
Speaker 1: Hold would tell him go down to the tour and
Speaker 1: get him an armed knee high and plug it back
Speaker 1: on and they bring it back then he got telling.
Speaker 1: So that was those worth some of the things that
Speaker 1: I knew and had heard about Whold Caller that was
Speaker 1: Hankberg dying and before Miner's research, holtz story was en
Speaker 1: route to be lost. But after his five year old
Speaker 1: daughter quizzed him about the origin of the teddy Bear,
Speaker 1: he began a research project that would define more than
Speaker 1: a decade of his life. And luckily some of the
Speaker 1: people who actually knew hold were still in the Greenville area.
Speaker 1: Minor captured the last remaining firsthand knowledge of Holt like
Speaker 1: a kid scooping tadpoles out of a drying mud hole
Speaker 1: an episode one of this series. We made it through
Speaker 1: the first twenty years of Holt Collier's life, just to
Speaker 1: get you caught up and refreshed. Here's the stuff we've learned.
Speaker 1: Holt was a black man born enslaved to the Hinz
Speaker 1: family in Mississippi in eighteen forty six. The Hinds were
Speaker 1: politically powerful and wealthy, and Holt worked directly for how
Speaker 1: Hinz as his hustler, taking care of horses, hounds, and
Speaker 1: hunting for the plantation. Holt began to set himself apart
Speaker 1: by killing his first bear when he was only ten
Speaker 1: years old. A few years later, boldly rejecting the wishes
Speaker 1: of hal Hin's, Holt runs away to join the Confederate
Speaker 1: Army at the age of fourteen and becomes an accomplished
Speaker 1: soldier in the ninth Texas Cavalry, a roving horseback unit
Speaker 1: involved in guerrilla warfare, covert raids, and dispensing backwoods justice
Speaker 1: to Union sympathizers. Holt's involvement in the Ninth Texas branded
Speaker 1: his life, evidenced by his habit of brandishing firearms and
Speaker 1: wearing his Confederate hat with the bill flipped up most
Speaker 1: of his life. The idea of a black man fighting
Speaker 1: in the Confederate Army is a complicated story, and on
Speaker 1: part one Jonathan Wilkins introduced us to the idea that
Speaker 1: holtz situation was very complex and that race relations dominated
Speaker 1: his life, though he navigated them seemingly with ease. But
Speaker 1: if you remember, things got wild when Holt kept shooting folks.
Speaker 1: After the war, Holt shot a white man in defense
Speaker 1: of his former slave owner, Howel Hinz, which sounds wild,
Speaker 1: but he got off without any charges pressed. Secondly, he
Speaker 1: was accused, tried, and acquitted in a military tribunal for
Speaker 1: the murder of Captain James A. King, a Union officer
Speaker 1: and member of the Freedman's Bureau who was stationed in
Speaker 1: the South after the war. This is almost unbelievable based
Speaker 1: upon what we know about the time period. However, this
Speaker 1: is where the magic of holtz life, evidenced in uncountable ways,
Speaker 1: is seen so strongly. Holt was special and engendered the
Speaker 1: trust of those around him, overwriting the dominating racial norms
Speaker 1: of the time. Holt was represented in his trial by
Speaker 1: the best lawyer in Mississippi, the Gray Eagle, William Alexander Percy,
Speaker 1: the first Now we're in a new sector of Holt's
Speaker 1: long life. He lived to be ninety years old, and
Speaker 1: wouldn't you know it, it starts off with some more killing.
Speaker 1: Here's minor Ferris Buchanan with a wild story. We're skipping
Speaker 1: one major stories about hold and that is the gunfight
Speaker 1: at Washburn's. Ferry fellow name Sage, who's from originally from Waterford, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: which is close to wround from. He was a kind
Speaker 1: of a renegade deputy share from over in Louisiana. It
Speaker 1: killed a couple of prominent young men in their early twenties,
Speaker 1: and he crossed the river, came over into the Mississippi
Speaker 1: Delta to hide out. And as Holts going out to
Speaker 1: start his season, he's leaving Greenville, he's loaded up his
Speaker 1: provisions in his wagon, and the sheriff comes to him
Speaker 1: and tells him hold his fellows out. Of all sage
Speaker 1: from Louisiana, we think hiding out, keeping out for him,
Speaker 1: it's another He's a white man, Holt, who served as
Speaker 1: a deputy sheriff before, who's been who because they knew
Speaker 1: him to be very dependable in a good shot. He
Speaker 1: takes that seriously. And as he's going into the wilderness,
Speaker 1: as a river up there called the boat Fly. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's low, sometimes it's high, depending on the weather. But
Speaker 1: right there on his Washburn store, and he has he
Speaker 1: has a ferry service, so it's called Washburn's Ferry. As
Speaker 1: Holt rides up there in his wagon with his mule,
Speaker 1: he sees the man that fits the description of this
Speaker 1: sage character and on his horse and there's Washburn standing
Speaker 1: there talking to him. Now Holt realizes this is sage
Speaker 1: and he's got to come up with a plan. They
Speaker 1: can't just walk up to him with a gun drawn.
Speaker 1: He acts kind of friendly, and Washburn it makes the introductions,
Speaker 1: and he says, that's a fine looking Winchester rifle. You
Speaker 1: got there? Your mind? If I look at it. His
Speaker 1: purpose is to disarm this fellow, say It says, sure,
Speaker 1: look at it, and he hands him the rifle voluntarily,
Speaker 1: and Hope puts the rifle down, leanings it up against
Speaker 1: the porch and immediately says you're under rest. And Washburn
Speaker 1: standing on the porch. They're all pretty close together, and
Speaker 1: even though Washburn knows hold, I can only assume it's
Speaker 1: two white men one black man. And Washburn picks up
Speaker 1: that rifle and passes it over to sayge she's on
Speaker 1: the horse, and Sage immediately comes down to aim the
Speaker 1: gun at swing, swings it on Hold, puts the muzzle
Speaker 1: on him, and the barrel of the gun hits that
Speaker 1: horse right between the ears, and if you know anything
Speaker 1: about horses, that's a very sensitive spot. And the horse
Speaker 1: rears up just enough for Hope to pull his revolver
Speaker 1: and literally gunfight. Hope shoots the guy right through the chest.
Speaker 1: The man falls dead on his back and cocked rifle
Speaker 1: in his hand, and there's a corner's inquest. That's as
Speaker 1: far as it goes. I'm sure the sheriff aim and
Speaker 1: test five coroner's in quest, and Hope was exonerated and
Speaker 1: found not guilty. That he never even went to court
Speaker 1: heat heat well, the only court he went to was
Speaker 1: a court what's called the coroner's in quest. The corner
Speaker 1: makes the initial determination whether it's a homicide, justifible or otherwise.
Speaker 1: And he said self defense. You know, we don't have
Speaker 1: that report, but I know it was a corner's inquest.
Speaker 1: And holding on back in the woods and continued hunting.
Speaker 1: And then that article that's eighteen eighty one. Now that
Speaker 1: are that's after reconstruction. We no longer have Union soldiers
Speaker 1: down anymore. And that killing of a white man by
Speaker 1: a black man in Greenville, Mississippi, out and out and
Speaker 1: still the wilderness raised the ire of a lot of
Speaker 1: people enough that it made the newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and the headline was white man killed by a black man.
Speaker 1: That's a fine looking Winchester rifle, Holt said, before he
Speaker 1: took the gun and drew his pistol. That's nervy. The
Speaker 1: gunfight at Washburn's ferry took place in eighteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: and it is the third man that Holt has shot
Speaker 1: or allegedly shot since the Civil War ended. And we
Speaker 1: just learned another new thing. Holt was a deputy sheriff
Speaker 1: in Mississippi for a while. But now we're gonna go
Speaker 1: back to eighteen sixty six, to where we left off.
Speaker 1: After the trial in Vicksburg, when Holt was acquitted of
Speaker 1: the murder of Captain James A. King, holtz friends have
Speaker 1: some advice for him if he wants to live. They
Speaker 1: had a meeting right there on the courthouse grounds where
Speaker 1: William Alexander Percy and Howell Heinz and other prominent people
Speaker 1: from Greenville, Mississippi, said, Holt, if you come back to Greenville,
Speaker 1: we cannot protect you because James A. King was, according
Speaker 1: to everything I've been able to find, was much beloved
Speaker 1: by his men we're talking about. And there's a garrison
Speaker 1: of several hundred Union soldiers there, and if Holt goes
Speaker 1: back to Greenville, he's gonna be strung up. So as
Speaker 1: luck would have at, some of the Texas boys that
Speaker 1: hold had ridden with were still around. They hadn't gone
Speaker 1: back to Texas yet, and they were there and they said, well, Holt,
Speaker 1: I'm on out to Texas with us. You can ride
Speaker 1: with us and and we'll give you a job. You're
Speaker 1: good with horses, And so that's what he did. What
Speaker 1: good American story doesn't mid plot have the good guy
Speaker 1: slash outlaw flee into Texas. No way, Minor could have
Speaker 1: made a flashy fiction story better than the truth. Here's
Speaker 1: hankberd dying telling how Holt got his first job on
Speaker 1: a Texas ranch. Did I mentioned in the bullet points
Speaker 1: about holtz life in the first episode that he became
Speaker 1: an accomplished Texas cowboy. No? I didn't, but he did.
Speaker 1: And when Holt got back to Greenville, they on him.
Speaker 1: He was acquitted, but they were gonna get him anyway.
Speaker 1: And word got to whole ship, Hold, you need to
Speaker 1: just get out of here for a little while. Let
Speaker 1: let's smoke clear, you know. So Hold decided to go
Speaker 1: to Texas where his partners were. So he gets out
Speaker 1: yond and he goes and sees saw ross Uh and
Speaker 1: Saul says, yeah, we find something for you to do
Speaker 1: out here, and so he sent him out in the
Speaker 1: Plains to a coupboard crew. I r said, they'll they'll
Speaker 1: probably give you a job, and holds a little wiry,
Speaker 1: not a big book kind of guy. So he comes
Speaker 1: out there, and none of these guys in this outfit,
Speaker 1: they don't know they don't know it. Well, it's a
Speaker 1: bunch of these old cowboys out then probably all I'm white. Now,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of black cowboards out that time,
Speaker 1: so I can't say that there weren't any in that crew.
Speaker 1: So he goes out there and see the straw balls
Speaker 1: and said, I'd like to have jobs, says so, and
Speaker 1: you know anything about cattle and horses, he's a yess,
Speaker 1: I know a little bit about horses and all he says, well,
Speaker 1: I tell you what we'll do. Said, you see that
Speaker 1: pony over beyond there in that carras, said if you
Speaker 1: can ride that pony, that we'll give you a job.
Speaker 1: And by that time, all those cowboys around they heard
Speaker 1: what the strow balls said, and they turned around snickering
Speaker 1: and laughing. Ain't ain't nobody had been able to ride
Speaker 1: that horse. That's the one horse and the whole remutal
Speaker 1: that nobody could ride. So hold said, I ain't riding,
Speaker 1: he said, saddle him up. So they caught the horse
Speaker 1: and they got the saddle on him and got him
Speaker 1: sensed up tighten. This horse is just going crazy. So
Speaker 1: the next thing Holks I asked for is a pair
Speaker 1: of six shooters loaded. The rest of the cowboys jumped
Speaker 1: behind trees. They don't know where he's going with us.
Speaker 1: They have no idea where he's going with this. Holding
Speaker 1: new because holding you by the horses. So they gave
Speaker 1: him the gruns and he strapped them on and he
Speaker 1: grabbed that horse's reins and the first thing he did
Speaker 1: was run those reins around that saddle horn and all
Speaker 1: being pulled that horse. And if you know anything about horses,
Speaker 1: he pulled that horse's head all the way around where
Speaker 1: dead gone near touched that saddle. Well, when the horses
Speaker 1: like that, he came buck. He can't do much of nothing,
Speaker 1: but you'd run around in a circle. And when he
Speaker 1: did that, hold jumped up on that horse, and the
Speaker 1: second hit Buck hit that horse's saddle. He turned that
Speaker 1: rein loose and let him slip through his fingers and
Speaker 1: the horse took off. And on the first book he
Speaker 1: made Holt pulled a pistol, and well at that shot,
Speaker 1: that horse took all running, and then he slowed down
Speaker 1: enough to start bucking again. Hope shot again. Every time
Speaker 1: he'd go to buck, Holk would shoot up in the
Speaker 1: air and nick thing, they ain't no holder running out
Speaker 1: through the plane shooting that gun. Popp said, after about
Speaker 1: fifteen in a minute, Hope come walking back in that hard,
Speaker 1: just as gentle as he can be. He said, that's
Speaker 1: pretty good horse. When I read that story, I was
Speaker 1: like those cowboys. I had no idea why he asked
Speaker 1: for six shooters, but it makes perfect sense what he
Speaker 1: was doing. He said, when the horses bucking, that's when
Speaker 1: you get thrown off. And he knew he could ride
Speaker 1: that horse if it was running, that's right. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the horse might buck me off if it just stands
Speaker 1: here and bucks, he said, but if that horse is running.
Speaker 1: And he noted that it was a treeless area, I
Speaker 1: mean he said it was just vast and wide. And
Speaker 1: so what a story. These things I think are important
Speaker 1: to me. They are that story was recorded. I mean,
Speaker 1: Holt Collier told that story. That's the way he told it,
Speaker 1: which is so interesting, and and anybody that knows I'm
Speaker 1: about horses. I've shot off a horse and got bunked
Speaker 1: off after I shot the boys, after I threw him
Speaker 1: a gun down. I'm a sucker for a good roughstock
Speaker 1: ride and an unlikely cowboy gain in the respect of
Speaker 1: the super punchers. How has this story not been made
Speaker 1: into a movie? We explained it. But Holt wasn't sure
Speaker 1: he could ride a bucking horse. But he knew he
Speaker 1: could ride a running horse, so he shot to make
Speaker 1: the horse run, not buck. And you ain't no cowboy.
Speaker 1: If you don't know that trick, try that would offer
Speaker 1: sized deal Brisbee. For the record, Hank mentioned that Halts
Speaker 1: stopped by to see soul Ross, who was one of
Speaker 1: Holt's former commanders in the Confederate Calvary who would later
Speaker 1: become the nineteenth Governor of Texas and president of the
Speaker 1: College Texas. A and M. Holt was basically in the
Speaker 1: who's who club of the Postbell him South. Here's Minor
Speaker 1: with yet another odd overlap of holtz life and Holt
Speaker 1: went out to Texas to the area of Titus County, Texas.
Speaker 1: I would read all this stuff in my research, and
Speaker 1: I had I just couldn't believe it. Until I corroborated
Speaker 1: with another source, and I corroborated everything except one item.
Speaker 1: He says in Texas he met Frank James with the
Speaker 1: Jesse James gang, and I was unable to corroborate that.
Speaker 1: But then I did my research on the James Gang,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, when they would take a break out
Speaker 1: of ribbing people in Missouri in Arkansas and they would
Speaker 1: go down to this area of Texas during the same
Speaker 1: period of time. So it's possible. That possible. But he said, well,
Speaker 1: why would he tell a reporter who interviewed I met
Speaker 1: Frank James. That's that's just such a random fact for
Speaker 1: him to do. But so I believe it, but I
Speaker 1: never was able to, you know, so solidly corroborated Frank James.
Speaker 1: He was the older brother of the notorious outlaw Jesse James,
Speaker 1: and Frank was involved in at least four bank robberies.
Speaker 1: The only reason I doubt this story is I figure
Speaker 1: if hold had found him, he had killed him or
Speaker 1: hog tied him and turned him in for the bounty.
Speaker 1: Frank was a secessionist for Missouri and fought for the
Speaker 1: Confederacy in the Civil War before he became a criminal. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: in two five months after his brother Jesse James was killed,
Speaker 1: Frank James made an appointment with the governor of Missouri
Speaker 1: to turn himself in. This was back when hardened criminals
Speaker 1: had some nobility and drama. He's quoted as saying to
Speaker 1: the governor as he handed him his pistol. Quote, I've
Speaker 1: been hunted for twenty one years, have literally lived in
Speaker 1: the saddle, have never known a day of perfect peace.
Speaker 1: It was a long, anxious, inexorable, eternal vigil end of quote. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Holt said he met Frank James and minor and I
Speaker 1: believe him. And for any of you traveling through Waco, Texas,
Speaker 1: here's something for you to go see. And we don't
Speaker 1: know a lot about the two years he stayed out
Speaker 1: in Texas except we know who that he went out there,
Speaker 1: and he stayed on a ranch with his guys he knew,
Speaker 1: and he rode with and Saul Ross, who had been
Speaker 1: the commander of the Night Texas Cavalry as what would
Speaker 1: have it. And there's a there's a wonderful work of
Speaker 1: art in Waco, Texas. The largest is I've been describing
Speaker 1: me as the largest bronze work of art in the
Speaker 1: state of Texas takes up several lakers and his ten
Speaker 1: or twelve hit a longhorn cattle are all at one
Speaker 1: in the half size, and then the three cowboys. If
Speaker 1: you know your your history of of Waco, Texas, all
Speaker 1: these cattle uh drives would go through Waco. Somebody came
Speaker 1: up with the ideals build a bridge, a big wide bridge,
Speaker 1: and charge of dollar ahead for these cattle. And so
Speaker 1: the city of Waco started making a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Bridge is still there. It's wonderful spot. And uh. But
Speaker 1: they said, let's let's build these bronze longhorns and these
Speaker 1: cowboys to herd these cattle across this bridge. And and
Speaker 1: somebody out there had read my book and they made
Speaker 1: a significant contribution for this project. And his only consideration was,
Speaker 1: I will contribute the money as long as you make
Speaker 1: one of these cowboys whole cager. So they did. Uh.
Speaker 1: Looks just like Holtz wearing his van Dyke Beard got
Speaker 1: to say. It turned up in the front, but you
Speaker 1: wouldn't know his hold. But if you look at I
Speaker 1: think it's his left heel and carved into his left hill.
Speaker 1: It's his Holt car. Here there's a bronze statue of
Speaker 1: Holt in Waco, Texas. I like it. Post a picture
Speaker 1: and tag me on Instagram if you're down there and
Speaker 1: you see that statue. This was done in modern times,
Speaker 1: and Holt would have never known anything about it. I'm
Speaker 1: torn when I learned about these guys that live their
Speaker 1: whole lives without many public accolades, and then after they're dead,
Speaker 1: they make statues of them. I'm not saying it's wrong,
Speaker 1: It's just a shame that they never knew such as life.
Speaker 1: I guess, well, let's pick back up with holtz life
Speaker 1: in Texas. He only spent about two years out there.
Speaker 1: And remember he's running from trouble. Holt is out of Texas.
Speaker 1: He's working as a cowhan on one of these ranches.
Speaker 1: Word comes to him that his mentor, former master, Howell Haines,
Speaker 1: has been killed in a knife fight in Greenville, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: We already know how Heinz is a scrapper, but in
Speaker 1: this situation, he's with a friend in a bar restaurant
Speaker 1: in Greenville. Now, Howell has never taken the oath. He's
Speaker 1: got friends who have taken oath. You got to take
Speaker 1: the oath to get your voting rights back to become
Speaker 1: a citizen, and every Confederate who he's got to take
Speaker 1: an oath of loyalty to the United States. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then he's restored to all his civil rights. Howell Haines
Speaker 1: never does that, and he gets into an argument with
Speaker 1: Dr Blanton, who's one of the memory of one of
Speaker 1: the founding families in Greenville who had taken the oath,
Speaker 1: and they get into an argument. It's just like I
Speaker 1: guess left and the right argue today, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: alcohol is pretty significantly involved. And Howell tries to break
Speaker 1: up a fight. How's in the middle of it, of course,
Speaker 1: but at the moment this happens, he tries to break
Speaker 1: up the fight, and Blanton, who's already pulled out of life,
Speaker 1: goes to stab the other guy, and he stabs how heins,
Speaker 1: how dies in agony after about three days. I'm sure
Speaker 1: infection said in and all that kind of thing, and
Speaker 1: he passes away word somehow gets out to Texas and
Speaker 1: whole Kier immediately leaves. He doesn't waste any time. He's
Speaker 1: coming back. He's gonna find Dr Blanton. He's gonna kill
Speaker 1: Dr Bland. He's got revenge on his mind, and Hope
Speaker 1: comes back to Greenville, Mississippi, and guess what. Dr Blanton
Speaker 1: has left town. He doesn't come back for six years
Speaker 1: because he knows Holt and holts reputation is well known
Speaker 1: in the community. Holt has now come back to Greenville, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and he's dead set on avenging his former slave owner.
Speaker 1: How heinz who was killed by this Dr Blatton. But
Speaker 1: a woman steps in to advocate for the dock with Holt.
Speaker 1: She's known as the Mother of Greenville. Here's how after
Speaker 1: the Yankees burned grendled down during the Civil War, everybody
Speaker 1: came home, folks said had lived him, moved out in
Speaker 1: the country, living wherever they could stay out John and
Speaker 1: then the engineer that laid out Vicksburg, that got him
Speaker 1: to come up here and lay out the streets for
Speaker 1: new Greenville. And Ms Blanton gave the land. That's why
Speaker 1: she's called the Mother of Greenville. And he gave the
Speaker 1: land for new grand for the new Greenville to be
Speaker 1: built back. And it was after the doctor and howl
Speaker 1: hein got into that that I who knew what he
Speaker 1: had to do. He had to do something again. And
Speaker 1: yet Miss Blanton asked him not to, and Hope let
Speaker 1: it go. He was going to go kill the doctors,
Speaker 1: that right, She said, don't kill him, and he said, okay,
Speaker 1: because he was. After a while, Miss Blanton got to
Speaker 1: Hope and asked him not to have retribution, and he
Speaker 1: respected what she and and that's what it did. Holt
Speaker 1: call your respected the wishes of the mother of Greenville,
Speaker 1: Miss Blanton. Interesting stuff. Is it integrity when you honor
Speaker 1: a man's wife who politely asked you not to kill
Speaker 1: her husband and you decide not to in an odd way,
Speaker 1: it seems like it is. But we're gonna get back
Speaker 1: to the story. Holtz now back in Greenville to attend
Speaker 1: to hal Heine's funeral and to show mercy to Dr. Blatton,
Speaker 1: but he's found himself in danger once again. Here's minor.
Speaker 1: So here we are. It's eighteen and the South is
Speaker 1: still under reconstruction. Those same men who had served under
Speaker 1: James King are still occupying Greenville, Mississippi, and when they
Speaker 1: learned Holt is back in town, they arrest him and
Speaker 1: they charge him again with the killing of James King,
Speaker 1: even though he's already been found not guilty. Has to
Speaker 1: go through some to get the charges dropped and get
Speaker 1: him released. He gets arrested again, multiple times. He gets arrested,
Speaker 1: and I think it every time he's arrested, there's a
Speaker 1: certain element of exposure there because he could have been Lynch.
Speaker 1: You remember when I told you it's a wondering Holt
Speaker 1: lived to be ninety years old. He's only now in
Speaker 1: his early twenties, and he's evaded many scrapes with death
Speaker 1: and these won't be the last. In the first podcast,
Speaker 1: I dropped the bomb that Holt hunted with President Theodore Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in episode three. But here's where
Speaker 1: we're at. He's been acquitted of the murder, and the
Speaker 1: verdict made it unsafe for Hope to be in Mississippi
Speaker 1: and he had to get the heck out of Dodge.
Speaker 1: Here's Minor with one of the most mysterious stories about
Speaker 1: a confession that Holt made. Well, right now, we don't
Speaker 1: know that Hope killed man. We don't know who killed
Speaker 1: James A. King until nineteen o two. Is the first
Speaker 1: time he ever confesses to anybody? And who did he
Speaker 1: confess to? Theodore Roosevelt? How do we know that one
Speaker 1: of the members of the nineteen o two hunt, wrote
Speaker 1: an article about the hunt, and in that article he
Speaker 1: gives one paragraph to the fact that Theodore Roosevelt pressed
Speaker 1: Hod Carrier to tell him whether or not he had
Speaker 1: killed James King. And in that article he says, Holt
Speaker 1: admitted to killing James King. But that's another story for
Speaker 1: another article. Now he said, he said he killed him.
Speaker 1: This is what he said. He said he killed him
Speaker 1: in a duel in the cane brake. But that's a
Speaker 1: story for another article. And of course it was never
Speaker 1: really if a living person admits to a murder, there's
Speaker 1: no there's no statute of limitations. We're moving forward to
Speaker 1: nineteen o two when he makes this confession. The killing
Speaker 1: took place in the eighteen sixty six on this hunt,
Speaker 1: at the moment around that campfire and whole Carrier is
Speaker 1: telling Theodore Roosevelt, yes, I killed James King and a
Speaker 1: duel in the cane break Another participant standing right next
Speaker 1: to him is Leroy Percy, who was William Alexander Percy's son,
Speaker 1: so his dad was there. I don't know what transpired
Speaker 1: around that campfire, but I like to think who Carrier
Speaker 1: refused to tell Theodore Roosevelt what happened. And this is
Speaker 1: a fact, he says, until he asked Leroy Percy would
Speaker 1: be all right if I told the President of the
Speaker 1: United States. And Leroy Percy told Holt it's okay to
Speaker 1: tell the president, and he told the President again. All
Speaker 1: we know is what he told him was a duel
Speaker 1: in the cane break. I'm sure he gave him more details.
Speaker 1: But in my imagination, I like to think that Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt said, I'm gonna give you a pardon. I got
Speaker 1: to hear what this story is. You know, you got
Speaker 1: a president actually maybe the safest man he could tell
Speaker 1: the story to Theodore Rose if he knew he had
Speaker 1: favorite with Theodore Roosevelt followed hole to round the camp site,
Speaker 1: asking him questions, because you know, Theodore Roosevelt was this
Speaker 1: great huntsman, adored other huntsman, you know who, according to
Speaker 1: everybody was on that hunt. They talked about how Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt followed whole colity around that most. He's the guy
Speaker 1: that Roosevelt most respected out of all those guys. Roosevelt
Speaker 1: had a Confederate connection. He had two uncles that served
Speaker 1: in the Confederate from Georgia. Theodore Roosevelt was drawn to hope.
Speaker 1: There's no question about it, and he wanted to know
Speaker 1: what happened to James King. And he wasn't gonna leave
Speaker 1: that hunt without knowing. You're sitting around a fire, camp fire,
Speaker 1: this is four or five nights, and you're telling these tales,
Speaker 1: you're sharing experiences. Things loosen up. I wish you had
Speaker 1: more details, but I don't doubt it for a minute
Speaker 1: that it was a duel in the can break, just
Speaker 1: like he said when I when I came out with
Speaker 1: the book, I initially had used the word murder, and
Speaker 1: one of the editors read it and I said, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, mind, and we don't want to portray Holt
Speaker 1: as a murderer. Do do we know that now? So
Speaker 1: I guess I didn't think about it when I used
Speaker 1: that term. And he says, well, what do we know
Speaker 1: about to kill it? I said, all we know is
Speaker 1: it's a duel in the cane break. He says, well,
Speaker 1: that's what you need to put in there, the duel
Speaker 1: and the cane brakes. It's wild to me that a
Speaker 1: national publication would have printed a murder confession in their paper,
Speaker 1: but nothing was ever done about it. Holt wasn't pardoned
Speaker 1: by Roosevelt because he'd never been convicted. It's a mystery,
Speaker 1: but the article was never refuted by Holt or the
Speaker 1: Percy's that we know of. It must have happened that
Speaker 1: way around that campfire. However, we're getting way ahead of
Speaker 1: ourselves by like thirty years, and it's stressing me out.
Speaker 1: The best way to run a good story is to
Speaker 1: cut to the punch line too quick. My wife Misty
Speaker 1: knows about that's my pet peeve, and the Roosevelt hunt
Speaker 1: is the punchline, which took place in nineteen o two.
Speaker 1: So let's go back thirty years seventy. So Hold his
Speaker 1: left Texas and his back in Greenville, but has found
Speaker 1: it an inhospitable place to chill. So he turns to
Speaker 1: something he's always loved and been good at, bear hunting.
Speaker 1: So he realizes at that point he needs to get
Speaker 1: out of town. And what does he know how to
Speaker 1: do best? He knows how to hunt. Now here we are,
Speaker 1: it's several years after the Civil War. You've got timber
Speaker 1: people have moved, and you've got new people coming in.
Speaker 1: You've got railroads being you've got a significant labor force,
Speaker 1: and it need to be fed. And you still can't
Speaker 1: have livestock because it's still flooding every year. So it's
Speaker 1: primarily timber. I mean, this is almost naturally the delta
Speaker 1: would be almost timber. All wilderness, I mean, the amount
Speaker 1: of ground that has been cleared for cultivation is minuscule
Speaker 1: compared to the amount of wilderness that's out there. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of hunting to be done, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of feeding to be done. People willing to pay
Speaker 1: money for animal carcasses. And so Hold has a brother
Speaker 1: named Marshall who has a little stable in town. And
Speaker 1: Marshall puts him up in the wagon and he goes out,
Speaker 1: I'm going to guess October November, and he'll go hunt
Speaker 1: and fill that wagon up full of meat, bring it
Speaker 1: in and sell it, go out and sell it. And
Speaker 1: that essentially market hunting, big, big part of market hunting southward.
Speaker 1: If if there were a railroad crew working on site,
Speaker 1: he'd right up with a wagon full of meat and
Speaker 1: sell it to him. They look forward to. He wouldn't
Speaker 1: only want to do any I mean, but so you
Speaker 1: got hold of a professional, legitimate professional, legitimate profession and
Speaker 1: bear meat was a big ticket item. And Holt started
Speaker 1: this about eighteen seventy and this was his career. When
Speaker 1: he was not hunting, he was helping his brother marshal
Speaker 1: at in the stable or in the springtime, he would
Speaker 1: follow the fares. He was a trade. He get on
Speaker 1: the train, go down to Florida, go out to Texas.
Speaker 1: He would live like how it taught him to live
Speaker 1: a big gambler, I think like the ladies. And he
Speaker 1: spent and all his money and which there's even one
Speaker 1: time one of the metcasts somebody had sent him some
Speaker 1: money to get back because he'd spend it off. In
Speaker 1: about eighteen seventy, Holt Collier becomes a market hunter, primarily
Speaker 1: for black bear in the American jungle that was the
Speaker 1: Mississippi Delta. At this time, not much of Mississippi was developed,
Speaker 1: and fast sections of it were basically virgin wilderness. Another
Speaker 1: interesting thing is that Mississippi was settled west to east,
Speaker 1: which is opposite of almost every other place in America,
Speaker 1: because the access point was the Mississippi River on the
Speaker 1: western edge of the state. We introduced Jonathan Wilkins on
Speaker 1: the first episode. Here he is talking about the wild
Speaker 1: place Holt was about to make a living on if
Speaker 1: you start thinking about a place that is thick and
Speaker 1: lush and green, and there's all these different things that
Speaker 1: can hurt you and sting you invite you, and you've
Speaker 1: got alligators, and you've got poisonous snakes, and then it's
Speaker 1: also the realm of this version of charismatic megafauna that
Speaker 1: we no longer even associate with those regions. Right Like
Speaker 1: we think of black bears now as mountain creatures, but
Speaker 1: for so much of their existence in North America, there
Speaker 1: were also swamp creatures. So you're dealing with something that's
Speaker 1: you're dealing with the place that you know, I would
Speaker 1: say tantamount to like the Everglades as far as like
Speaker 1: how thick it is and the richness of life and
Speaker 1: also the hazards that can be present. Here's Hank describing
Speaker 1: the Delta. The Mississippi Delta was the last alluvial floodplain
Speaker 1: hardwood bottom land to be cleared in America, and it
Speaker 1: were covered with bear. It had more bear per square
Speaker 1: mile than any other place in America, and it was
Speaker 1: great sport for hunters to hunt bear, and it was
Speaker 1: a good source of meat. Of course, This was the
Speaker 1: last of the bottom land hardwood forest. The all of
Speaker 1: the pine and whatever, and the eastern seaboard had been
Speaker 1: cut out. They had gone out into the great forest
Speaker 1: in the northwest. Call all that stuff out. You couldn't
Speaker 1: get in down here because there were no railroad, there
Speaker 1: were no highway, there were no levis down here at
Speaker 1: the time. Yet we had oat trees and cypress trees
Speaker 1: and sycamore trees that were twenty and thirty feet in
Speaker 1: circumfort twelve fifteen feet in diame, two huge things. This
Speaker 1: American jungle was the backdrop of holtz life as a hunter.
Speaker 1: I want to read a couple of excerpts from Miner's
Speaker 1: book Halt Collier to learn something about his bear hunting.
Speaker 1: It's wild, but the Delta South has incredibly rich history
Speaker 1: of bear hunting with hounds. Here are the deeds about
Speaker 1: holtz market hunting and why he did what he did.
Speaker 1: This is from the book Halt Collier quote. In these
Speaker 1: prosperous circumstances, Wholt Collyer recognized an opportunity to earn a
Speaker 1: living without having to pick cotton or work in the fields.
Speaker 1: In abundance of wild game and Collyer's knowledge of the
Speaker 1: vast wilderness made him well suited for an occupation as
Speaker 1: a professional hunter. Mississippi whitetailed deer was a prime source
Speaker 1: of meat, and it was plentiful and considered an easy kill.
Speaker 1: Dear meat was not as much in demand as the
Speaker 1: meat of the black bear. Deer were small and sold
Speaker 1: for only thirty cents per pound. Field dressed, a fully
Speaker 1: grown bear could earn a hunter sixty dollars or more.
Speaker 1: End of quote. That's some major money. Here's some more
Speaker 1: from the book quote. With the passing of years, Holt
Speaker 1: Collyer's reputation as a bear hunter grew, until by the
Speaker 1: turn of the century that had reached heroic proportions, at
Speaker 1: least on a local level. He averaged about a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty kills the season and kept a book count
Speaker 1: of more than kills into the book burned in his
Speaker 1: brother Marshall's house in Collier. Earned more than nine in
Speaker 1: one season, and was known to have as much as
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars in his possession at one time. These
Speaker 1: were phenomenal amounts of money for a black man in
Speaker 1: the Mississippi Delta, and more than most people earned in
Speaker 1: a year. When not on the hunt, Callier led what
Speaker 1: could easily be described as a cavalier lifestyle. He indulged
Speaker 1: in the one vice that haunted him his entire life, gambling.
Speaker 1: It is apparently from several sources that he never drank alcohol.
Speaker 1: At the annual spring fairs, he played poker and pharaoh,
Speaker 1: and wagered heavily on horse races. In the summer, he
Speaker 1: enjoyed playing baseball in In eighteen seventy seven, he financed
Speaker 1: the team that received local attention. It was named Holt
Speaker 1: Collier's Club from Deer Creek. Following the hunting season, every year,
Speaker 1: Callier traveled in any direction and to any destination that
Speaker 1: suited him. He sometimes went to West Texas and followed
Speaker 1: the spring fairs, he went south to the racetracks and
Speaker 1: fairs of Louisiana. Most years he would return home penniless.
Speaker 1: His friends urged him to save money, settled down, and
Speaker 1: buy some property for a house. Collier did not heed
Speaker 1: their warnings. He preferred to live in the swamp or
Speaker 1: with friends while story in his meager belongings at the
Speaker 1: Greenville Stable and at the home of his brother Marshall.
Speaker 1: The spring immediately Following his most successful years, Collyer was
Speaker 1: wealthy by Delta standards, With two thousand dollars in his pocket.
Speaker 1: He went north to follow the seasonal races and local fairs,
Speaker 1: much in the same manner as he had done with
Speaker 1: Howel Hinds in the prosperous years before the war. Collyer
Speaker 1: was confident that he knew horses and could pick the winners.
Speaker 1: He took the train north, but soon discovered that a
Speaker 1: free African American with cash had different appeal to the
Speaker 1: northern philanthropists. He fell victim to the experience gamblers, who
Speaker 1: stripped him clean, and he had to telegraph home for
Speaker 1: railroad fare. This routine was an annual ritual for Collier. Quote.
Speaker 1: In the spring, I'd go away and follow the races,
Speaker 1: same as I used to St. Louis and Saratoga and
Speaker 1: New Orleans and way out in Texas, taken in the fars.
Speaker 1: Then in the fall, I'd come home and get my
Speaker 1: dogs together and hit the cane brake again. And I
Speaker 1: just naturally loved a horse and love to hunt bears.
Speaker 1: Didn't do nothing except hunt. End of quote. The yearly
Speaker 1: loss of his hard earned money had little effect on
Speaker 1: the unregimented sportsman. It was not his desire to be domesticated,
Speaker 1: and he had little used for money in the swamp.
Speaker 1: His life revolved around his dogs to hunt and his
Speaker 1: frolicking around end of quote. And an article, Holt was
Speaker 1: later quoted as saying, quote, money don't buy nothing in
Speaker 1: the cane bread makes know how a man's dog don't
Speaker 1: care whether he's rich or poor. End of quote. That's
Speaker 1: a pretty philosophical statement. And in this we learned a
Speaker 1: lot about Holt, but I'm probably most surprised that he
Speaker 1: had a baseball team. Were you expecting that anybody that
Speaker 1: is hunting bear with hounds is going to be a houndsman.
Speaker 1: And here's something that he said about his hounds that
Speaker 1: confirms it. Quote My dogs would fight a bear three
Speaker 1: or four days and nights until they almost starved to death,
Speaker 1: waiting for me to come. Often found him the third
Speaker 1: or fourth day, tree in or fight me and them
Speaker 1: both has lived off of raw meat and not cared
Speaker 1: whether twere cooked or not. End of quote. Holt believed
Speaker 1: his dogs were the best that ever lived, and that's
Speaker 1: what a good houndsman is supposed to think. Here's an
Speaker 1: excerpt for Miners Book on Bear Dogs. Quote. A successful
Speaker 1: bear hunter relied heavily on his pack of mixed breed
Speaker 1: dogs to chase in corner the bruin. It is said
Speaker 1: that a bear dog belongs to no particular breed, that
Speaker 1: he is an accident, and that of a large number
Speaker 1: of such animals, only one might be found that takes
Speaker 1: to a bear hold. Collyer once described Mandy the most
Speaker 1: reliable dog he ever owned. She had been badly cut
Speaker 1: by bear once, and afterwards she would hunt only deer wildcat.
Speaker 1: But when old Mandy would come in and got right
Speaker 1: between my legs, I knowed it was a bear. No mistake.
Speaker 1: Mandy never guessed wrong about a bear, not one time.
Speaker 1: James Gordon explained that there were dogs of varying sizes
Speaker 1: in each pack. A few rough haired terriers, active and
Speaker 1: plucky that can fight close to the bruins, nose and
Speaker 1: dodge under the cane when pursued, some medium sized dogs
Speaker 1: to fight on all sides, and a few large active
Speaker 1: curs to pinch his hind quarters when he charges in
Speaker 1: front or crosses an opening in the woods. End of quote.
Speaker 1: That's some incredible stuff, and it's really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: To see the heritage of hunting with hounds that there
Speaker 1: is in Mississippi and all throughout the Delta. Here's minor
Speaker 1: with more on holtz hunting career. Eighteen seventy to nineteen
Speaker 1: o two is thirty two years. It's Holt is credited
Speaker 1: with having killed over three thousand bear during that time
Speaker 1: on his hunting exploits. Now, I came up with the
Speaker 1: line that's more than Daniel Bone and David Crockett combined.
Speaker 1: I think I'm on target there. I may not be right,
Speaker 1: but I think I'm on target because Daniel Boney and
Speaker 1: David Crowdy, if you read their biographies and what they're
Speaker 1: not in the woods as much as only he had
Speaker 1: thirty two continuous years in the woods, and it was
Speaker 1: well documented in the sense that the whole capital ledger
Speaker 1: at his brother's stable he ended up getting burned up.
Speaker 1: So we don't have it, but well he I think
Speaker 1: that's an important fact that he there was a ledger
Speaker 1: that had twenty one bears when he got burned. But
Speaker 1: I can give him the three thousand counting without any
Speaker 1: question because Theodore Roosevelt wrote about this hunt. He gave
Speaker 1: who call your credit with having killed over three thousand bear.
Speaker 1: He gave him a credit, and I'm not gonna take
Speaker 1: it away from him. Holt had a long career as
Speaker 1: a market bear hunter, but rarely do things stay the
Speaker 1: same when you're dealing with natural systems and people. From
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy to about eighteen ninety, bears were plentiful, and
Speaker 1: he sold the meat, hides and bear grease and made
Speaker 1: some really good money doing it. However, by eighteen ninety
Speaker 1: the land was being developed, bear numbers dwindled and they
Speaker 1: only remained in the remotest regions of Mississippi. Market hunting
Speaker 1: and habitat loss were significant for the black bear, and
Speaker 1: it's interesting that the same thing roughly in the same
Speaker 1: time period was happening in Arkansas. His hunting had to change.
Speaker 1: It's also interesting and sad to me to see the
Speaker 1: similar trend with many great American hunters like Daniel Boone
Speaker 1: and Holt. These guys start with a baseline of robust
Speaker 1: game populations like dB and Kentucky, but by the time
Speaker 1: they're old, the game is scarce. I wonder if Holt
Speaker 1: was sad about the demise of the bear. I'm certain
Speaker 1: that he was. This was the old order of North
Speaker 1: American hunting before Theodore Roosevelt and many others helped usher
Speaker 1: in what we now know as the North American model
Speaker 1: of wildlife conservation, which has been massively successful for managing
Speaker 1: big game populations and preserving habitat. I'm certain Roosevelt's time
Speaker 1: in the Delta with dwindling bear population pushed his then
Speaker 1: radical ideology about conservation forward, and I'm very glad that
Speaker 1: it did. Maybe Holt had an influence on him. I
Speaker 1: bet he did. Holt was good at making things work,
Speaker 1: so he shifted his market hunting business to a sport
Speaker 1: hunting outfitting service which didn't take as many bears to
Speaker 1: make a living. Here's Jonathan with an interesting aspect of
Speaker 1: using black guides in the South after the Civil War. Again,
Speaker 1: he's meat hunting, scouting, all that kind of stuff, doing
Speaker 1: this work that he's you know, got years and years
Speaker 1: in and has built this reputation as being very good
Speaker 1: at and that leads him to becoming like a professional
Speaker 1: hunting guide. Especially you know in the postbellum where there
Speaker 1: was this there was this kind of strange dichotomy of
Speaker 1: like residents of the North coming down specifically for hunting, recreation,
Speaker 1: and specifically to be guided by black guides, because that
Speaker 1: was kind of part of the narrative and the story
Speaker 1: and the quote unquote romance of the Southern experience. But
Speaker 1: you know, he ends up doing well for himself. Before
Speaker 1: we get further, let's fill in some gaps about Holt's
Speaker 1: personal life. In eighteen eighty, when Holt was thirty four
Speaker 1: years old, he was recorded as being married to Rose Collier.
Speaker 1: Very little is recorded about their relationship, but they did
Speaker 1: have three children together, Effie, Maggie, and Coley. Not much
Speaker 1: is known about this family, but by eighteen ninety, Holt
Speaker 1: wasn't with Rose anymore, and he was married to Maggie Phillips,
Speaker 1: also of which not much is known, but she wouldn't
Speaker 1: be his last wife. There was a divorce. In a
Speaker 1: nineteen old four when Holt was sixty eight years old,
Speaker 1: he married twenty six year old Francis Parker. She is
Speaker 1: recorded by those who record stuff like this as having
Speaker 1: exceptional beauty. Anyhow, Holt would remain married to this woman
Speaker 1: until her death in nineteen thirty one at the age
Speaker 1: of forty four. And in the next episode, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you how many children Holt Callier had you'll be surprised.
Speaker 1: But there we go again, getting ahead of ourselves. And yep,
Speaker 1: it's stressing me out. We're still in the bear hunting
Speaker 1: era of Holt's life. Here's Hank telling the time Hole
Speaker 1: almost died in a log while bear hunting. Now, didn't
Speaker 1: mind to tell you about the time the whole Hormole
Speaker 1: died up in the tree. Hole was on a hunt
Speaker 1: with several of his buddies. He always hunted with his friends,
Speaker 1: and he was chasing a bear and a bar run up.
Speaker 1: He may have already gotten on the bear with his knife,
Speaker 1: and I think the bear broke loose and ran up
Speaker 1: in a huge hollow tree that was falling down. And
Speaker 1: a lot of time lightning will strike these trees and
Speaker 1: there will be a big open cavity down the middle
Speaker 1: of the tree. And the tree had fallen down, and
Speaker 1: the bear ran up in that hole in that tree.
Speaker 1: When the dogs went up in there were holding ran
Speaker 1: up in and and the boar was killing his dogs.
Speaker 1: So Hold goes up in there pulling his dogs out.
Speaker 1: When the bear decides enough of this, he's coming out
Speaker 1: that tree, so he runs by Hold and down. Yet
Speaker 1: the lord of tree laying on the ground, and Hold
Speaker 1: goes up in there to get his dogs out, and
Speaker 1: the bad aside. He's gonna come out well in the
Speaker 1: bad passes Hope as holder, jugging him with his knife
Speaker 1: and then gets a little bit halfway to the opening
Speaker 1: and lazying. Then dies and it's hot and he begins
Speaker 1: swelling up. What Holk can't get out? Then no, not
Speaker 1: Hold the with his dog. It's the dogs. The dogs out,
Speaker 1: and the bath come to buy and the bad dies
Speaker 1: between Hold and the end of the tree. When the
Speaker 1: Bath starts swelling up, Hope can't push him two hundred
Speaker 1: pound baar out a hold of the tree. He'd been
Speaker 1: to die and court Holds had gotten mauled coming by
Speaker 1: with Thank goodness, some of his guys was close by
Speaker 1: enough to try to figure out where Hold was and
Speaker 1: either heard the dogs or found the dogs and realized
Speaker 1: that that ball was up in that tree and they
Speaker 1: pulled it about and then he'll come home. Yeah, would
Speaker 1: have been no way to get out. Holt said that
Speaker 1: that was the most dangerous moment in hunting that he
Speaker 1: could recall in his life. He said that he thought
Speaker 1: perhaps it would have been in the dark but maybe
Speaker 1: he could have cut the bear up piece by piece
Speaker 1: and moved it behind him. Yeah. I mean, now that's
Speaker 1: a wild story and would have been a harrowing way
Speaker 1: to die. Holt could have been on Metaters, camp Fire Stories,
Speaker 1: Close Calls audio book. You should check that out. I
Speaker 1: tell a story about almost drowning, but that's not what
Speaker 1: we're talking about. We've covered some serious ground on this episode.
Speaker 1: We've learned a lot about holtz life from age twenty
Speaker 1: to age sixty four, but we still haven't talked about
Speaker 1: the most famous portion of his life, when he got
Speaker 1: at Theodore Roosevelt. But that's coming in part three. As
Speaker 1: we close, I want to ask Minor about his motivation
Speaker 1: for writing this book about Wholt Collier. He gave a
Speaker 1: compelling answer, so I know, just from talking with you,
Speaker 1: like your research on Holt is fueled from a respect
Speaker 1: of this man that you never knew. But you you
Speaker 1: can answer your question. I know where you're going. Why,
Speaker 1: what does this mean to you? And why do you
Speaker 1: I grew I grew up in Marshall County, Mississippi, working
Speaker 1: on a farm. This is a nineteen fifties and sixties
Speaker 1: during the Civil rights era and I knew a lot
Speaker 1: of really proud black men that I worked with. They
Speaker 1: didn't have much education, but they had a lot of
Speaker 1: pride and they had a lot of intelligence. And I
Speaker 1: looked up to him and I respected him. I can
Speaker 1: name you a ton of them, Roosevelt Yarboro, Elvis McKinney,
Speaker 1: Buddy Young, Aaron Jones. These people are most have been
Speaker 1: dead forty years. It was almost like they had this
Speaker 1: story and son told and uh, I just I just
Speaker 1: Nat Brooks, who's who's was to Holly Springs, what whole
Speaker 1: car he was to Greenville. But you know, Jim Crow
Speaker 1: just held these people back. He just held him back.
Speaker 1: And I just I just always had this misrespect for him.
Speaker 1: They were all poor, but they are all proud. And
Speaker 1: when I had the opportunity when I found this, and
Speaker 1: I thought, oh my gosh, you know, here's the guy
Speaker 1: who you know, he had money in his lifetime and
Speaker 1: in his elder life, he didn't have much money, but
Speaker 1: he had a lot of respect for the community. And
Speaker 1: these people I'm talking about had respect from the community.
Speaker 1: But because of the where we lived and in the climate,
Speaker 1: racial climate, that they just never could really prosper and
Speaker 1: their story needed to be told. And when I had
Speaker 1: an opportunity to tell a whole car your story, I
Speaker 1: kind of I kind of took that which I had
Speaker 1: been raised with as a child. I mean Lewis John
Speaker 1: worked with me. We used to get up cattle together,
Speaker 1: we mended fences together. I spent as much time with him.
Speaker 1: I knew his philosophy, and I loved the man. He
Speaker 1: died in his house fire, you know his his story
Speaker 1: has never been told, but uh, I felt I were
Speaker 1: with over in Warren County. One of the smartest guys
Speaker 1: I ever knew, crippled with polio. The name was Jesse.
Speaker 1: I don't even know his last night. That's all I
Speaker 1: ever knew was Jesse. But he took a part of
Speaker 1: Caterpillar D four and put it back together, and I helped.
Speaker 1: I was just a kid helping him. I was handing
Speaker 1: him to the wrench. You know, I'll tell the stories
Speaker 1: way off targets not it has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: whole carry. But this guy, Jesse, it's one of the
Speaker 1: funniest stories. We're over in Warren County Uncle's farm. Uncle says, money,
Speaker 1: You're gonna be Jesse's helper for the next few days
Speaker 1: he's gonna fix his Caterpillo D six. We didn't know
Speaker 1: what I didn't know what's wrong with it. We tore
Speaker 1: that motor all the way down, put it back together.
Speaker 1: He said, get up there and push it button, push
Speaker 1: that butt, startup. Ran like a sewing machine. And so
Speaker 1: my uncle's out tending to other business and I wish sitting.
Speaker 1: They're putting tools up. And I said, wait a minute, Jesse,
Speaker 1: And I looked down there as a bucket and it's
Speaker 1: full of nuts and boats and come out of that
Speaker 1: motor hadn't been put back. I mean, it's three or
Speaker 1: four pounds of these nuts and bolts. And I said, Jesse,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you can't. We gotta put we gotta
Speaker 1: put put this stuff back in this motor. You can't,
Speaker 1: He says, you put that down. I don't saying the uncle,
Speaker 1: but I just save your uncle five thousand dollars for
Speaker 1: the repairing, and pucket over in Jackson with a charge
Speaker 1: in five thousand dollars to make the repair. And then
Speaker 1: I had two buckets of boats. And when he said that,
Speaker 1: I had two bug of the bolts. I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: now that's that's an intelligent man. The story of Halt
Speaker 1: Collier is one of the most intriguing American stories I've
Speaker 1: ever heard. It's the tale of a man overcoming a
Speaker 1: broken system designed to keep him down and him finding
Speaker 1: a way against all odds to thrive. It's an inspiring story,
Speaker 1: a challenging story, a tragic story, but also a story
Speaker 1: we're celebrating. Like I said in the beginning, I doubt
Speaker 1: any of us will ever forget who Holt Call Your is.
Speaker 1: And we haven't even got to the best part of
Speaker 1: his life. And our third episode will cover his life
Speaker 1: from age sixty four to his death at age ninety
Speaker 1: and nineteen thirty six. What an incredible life, and I
Speaker 1: feel honored to even be able to tell his story.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Greece.
Speaker 1: I spoke with Minor Ferris Buchanan and he says he's
Speaker 1: got some pulp Call Your book still available to be
Speaker 1: ordered directly from his website Www. Holt Call Your dot com.
Speaker 1: They're super expensive on Amazon, but you can get them
Speaker 1: directly from Minor at that website. Check that out, and hey,
Speaker 1: do me a favor. Make a social media post this
Speaker 1: week about this podcast. Series, leave us a review, and
Speaker 1: share the Beargrease podcast with a friend. M