00:00:00 Speaker 1: M should you see that pony or beyond in that corras and if you can ride that pony, then we'll give you a job. And by that time all ottle cowboards around. They heard what the strow balls shit, and they turned around snickering and laughing. Ain't nobody had been able to ride that horse? As to one horse, and the whole remutal that nobody could ride to hold shut I riding on this episode of the bear Grease podcast were on part two and our Holt call your series and we're looking into the second section of his life from the age of twenty to his mid sixties, which were defined by gunfights, cowboy in and bear hunting. Holt was a former slave turned Confederate soldier. He was acquitted of the murder of the white Man after the Civil War, and he made a lot of money as a market bear hunter in the primeval swamps of Mississippi. Holt was buddies with presidents, governors, and outlaws. He became an accomplished cowboy in Texas while running from the vigilante justice of those that wanted him hung. Holt was married three times. He was a deputy sheriff. His best dog was named Mandy, and he had a baseball team named after him, and he guided President Teddy Roosevelt on the hunt that created the global icon of the Teddy Bear. We'll talk about that on episode three. Holt Collier lived an incredible life. You wouldn't believe Holt story if it wasn't the truth. He's surrounded by controversy and irony, but one thing is for certain. He was an extraordinary and brilliant man and his legacy deserves to sit with the kings of American culture. We're in search of learning who this man was. So I really doubt you're gonna want to miss this one, because after about fifteen point a minute, Hope come walking general as he can be pretty good hard now. Mh. My name is Clay Nukelem, and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land. Presented by f HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. When I started my research, there was this legend of whole career. So I started my book as a novel, and I wrote, I don't wrote twelve thirteen chapters, work on it for like a year and a half. That's a year and a half work, and I've got a good plot line. I got to saying, going, you know, I think I've got a good book going in and I realized, you know, all that SAIDs it's a novel and it's based on fact, but it's fiction. I woke up one morning I realized all I'm doing is adding to the legend by writing a historical fictional whole carrier, because nobody's gonna believe this. Nobody's gonna believe when I'm right here, because it was it was true, but it's all true. But I was given dialogue that kind of thing, and so I took that to manuscript and I threw in the trash. I'm gonna write historical fact. So I wanted to write a book that people would read and there would be no question that this man existed. These life events that he experienced. It happened the life of Holt Collier is unbelievable. Fiction couldn't rival the facts, and author Minor Ferris Buchanan of Jackson, Mississippi in the early nineteen nineties, realized that his book titled Holt Collier was published in two thousand two, and after teen years of research before it was published, it impacted a lot of people. I've heard about the whole call you all my life. Never knew that much about him until Miner's book came out. There was a black gentleman in town named John Johnson. John Johnson was an eighty year old black man. He's one of the best friends I've ever had. He was I shan't save my major domo, but he was. We I never went anywhere without John Johnson. And John Johnson would tell stories about the old days and growing up in Graham, and he knew Whole Collier and yeah, I was forty years old and he was eighty something years old. Oh wow. And he ended up being the best man in my wedding. And John knew Hole Callier and remembered Whole Collier seeing him and uh, seeing the little kids coming by then and crawling up, getting up on his front porch, want him to tell stories. And Hold would tell him go down to the tour and get him an armed knee high and plug it back on and they bring it back then he got telling. So that was those worth some of the things that I knew and had heard about Whold Caller that was Hankberg dying and before Miner's research, holtz story was en route to be lost. But after his five year old daughter quizzed him about the origin of the teddy Bear, he began a research project that would define more than a decade of his life. And luckily some of the people who actually knew hold were still in the Greenville area. Minor captured the last remaining firsthand knowledge of Holt like a kid scooping tadpoles out of a drying mud hole an episode one of this series. We made it through the first twenty years of Holt Collier's life, just to get you caught up and refreshed. Here's the stuff we've learned. Holt was a black man born enslaved to the Hinz family in Mississippi in eighteen forty six. The Hinds were politically powerful and wealthy, and Holt worked directly for how Hinz as his hustler, taking care of horses, hounds, and hunting for the plantation. Holt began to set himself apart by killing his first bear when he was only ten years old. A few years later, boldly rejecting the wishes of hal Hin's, Holt runs away to join the Confederate Army at the age of fourteen and becomes an accomplished soldier in the ninth Texas Cavalry, a roving horseback unit involved in guerrilla warfare, covert raids, and dispensing backwoods justice to Union sympathizers. Holt's involvement in the Ninth Texas branded his life, evidenced by his habit of brandishing firearms and wearing his Confederate hat with the bill flipped up most of his life. The idea of a black man fighting in the Confederate Army is a complicated story, and on part one Jonathan Wilkins introduced us to the idea that holtz situation was very complex and that race relations dominated his life, though he navigated them seemingly with ease. But if you remember, things got wild when Holt kept shooting folks. After the war, Holt shot a white man in defense of his former slave owner, Howel Hinz, which sounds wild, but he got off without any charges pressed. Secondly, he was accused, tried, and acquitted in a military tribunal for the murder of Captain James A. King, a Union officer and member of the Freedman's Bureau who was stationed in the South after the war. This is almost unbelievable based upon what we know about the time period. However, this is where the magic of holtz life, evidenced in uncountable ways, is seen so strongly. Holt was special and engendered the trust of those around him, overwriting the dominating racial norms of the time. Holt was represented in his trial by the best lawyer in Mississippi, the Gray Eagle, William Alexander Percy, the first Now we're in a new sector of Holt's long life. He lived to be ninety years old, and wouldn't you know it, it starts off with some more killing. Here's minor Ferris Buchanan with a wild story. We're skipping one major stories about hold and that is the gunfight at Washburn's. Ferry fellow name Sage, who's from originally from Waterford, Mississippi, which is close to wround from. He was a kind of a renegade deputy share from over in Louisiana. It killed a couple of prominent young men in their early twenties, and he crossed the river, came over into the Mississippi Delta to hide out. And as Holts going out to start his season, he's leaving Greenville, he's loaded up his provisions in his wagon, and the sheriff comes to him and tells him hold his fellows out. Of all sage from Louisiana, we think hiding out, keeping out for him, it's another He's a white man, Holt, who served as a deputy sheriff before, who's been who because they knew him to be very dependable in a good shot. He takes that seriously. And as he's going into the wilderness, as a river up there called the boat Fly. Sometimes it's low, sometimes it's high, depending on the weather. But right there on his Washburn store, and he has he has a ferry service, so it's called Washburn's Ferry. As Holt rides up there in his wagon with his mule, he sees the man that fits the description of this sage character and on his horse and there's Washburn standing there talking to him. Now Holt realizes this is sage and he's got to come up with a plan. They can't just walk up to him with a gun drawn. He acts kind of friendly, and Washburn it makes the introductions, and he says, that's a fine looking Winchester rifle. You got there? Your mind? If I look at it. His purpose is to disarm this fellow, say It says, sure, look at it, and he hands him the rifle voluntarily, and Hope puts the rifle down, leanings it up against the porch and immediately says you're under rest. And Washburn standing on the porch. They're all pretty close together, and even though Washburn knows hold, I can only assume it's two white men one black man. And Washburn picks up that rifle and passes it over to sayge she's on the horse, and Sage immediately comes down to aim the gun at swing, swings it on Hold, puts the muzzle on him, and the barrel of the gun hits that horse right between the ears, and if you know anything about horses, that's a very sensitive spot. And the horse rears up just enough for Hope to pull his revolver and literally gunfight. Hope shoots the guy right through the chest. The man falls dead on his back and cocked rifle in his hand, and there's a corner's inquest. That's as far as it goes. I'm sure the sheriff aim and test five coroner's in quest, and Hope was exonerated and found not guilty. That he never even went to court heat heat well, the only court he went to was a court what's called the coroner's in quest. The corner makes the initial determination whether it's a homicide, justifible or otherwise. And he said self defense. You know, we don't have that report, but I know it was a corner's inquest. And holding on back in the woods and continued hunting. And then that article that's eighteen eighty one. Now that are that's after reconstruction. We no longer have Union soldiers down anymore. And that killing of a white man by a black man in Greenville, Mississippi, out and out and still the wilderness raised the ire of a lot of people enough that it made the newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, and the headline was white man killed by a black man. That's a fine looking Winchester rifle, Holt said, before he took the gun and drew his pistol. That's nervy. The gunfight at Washburn's ferry took place in eighteen eighty one, and it is the third man that Holt has shot or allegedly shot since the Civil War ended. And we just learned another new thing. Holt was a deputy sheriff in Mississippi for a while. But now we're gonna go back to eighteen sixty six, to where we left off. After the trial in Vicksburg, when Holt was acquitted of the murder of Captain James A. King, holtz friends have some advice for him if he wants to live. They had a meeting right there on the courthouse grounds where William Alexander Percy and Howell Heinz and other prominent people from Greenville, Mississippi, said, Holt, if you come back to Greenville, we cannot protect you because James A. King was, according to everything I've been able to find, was much beloved by his men we're talking about. And there's a garrison of several hundred Union soldiers there, and if Holt goes back to Greenville, he's gonna be strung up. So as luck would have at, some of the Texas boys that hold had ridden with were still around. They hadn't gone back to Texas yet, and they were there and they said, well, Holt, I'm on out to Texas with us. You can ride with us and and we'll give you a job. You're good with horses, And so that's what he did. What good American story doesn't mid plot have the good guy slash outlaw flee into Texas. No way, Minor could have made a flashy fiction story better than the truth. Here's hankberd dying telling how Holt got his first job on a Texas ranch. Did I mentioned in the bullet points about holtz life in the first episode that he became an accomplished Texas cowboy. No? I didn't, but he did. And when Holt got back to Greenville, they on him. He was acquitted, but they were gonna get him anyway. And word got to whole ship, Hold, you need to just get out of here for a little while. Let let's smoke clear, you know. So Hold decided to go to Texas where his partners were. So he gets out yond and he goes and sees saw ross Uh and Saul says, yeah, we find something for you to do out here, and so he sent him out in the Plains to a coupboard crew. I r said, they'll they'll probably give you a job, and holds a little wiry, not a big book kind of guy. So he comes out there, and none of these guys in this outfit, they don't know they don't know it. Well, it's a bunch of these old cowboys out then probably all I'm white. Now, there were a lot of black cowboards out that time, so I can't say that there weren't any in that crew. So he goes out there and see the straw balls and said, I'd like to have jobs, says so, and you know anything about cattle and horses, he's a yess, I know a little bit about horses and all he says, well, I tell you what we'll do. Said, you see that pony over beyond there in that carras, said if you can ride that pony, that we'll give you a job. And by that time, all those cowboys around they heard what the strow balls said, and they turned around snickering and laughing. Ain't ain't nobody had been able to ride that horse. That's the one horse and the whole remutal that nobody could ride. So hold said, I ain't riding, he said, saddle him up. So they caught the horse and they got the saddle on him and got him sensed up tighten. This horse is just going crazy. So the next thing Holks I asked for is a pair of six shooters loaded. The rest of the cowboys jumped behind trees. They don't know where he's going with us. They have no idea where he's going with this. Holding new because holding you by the horses. So they gave him the gruns and he strapped them on and he grabbed that horse's reins and the first thing he did was run those reins around that saddle horn and all being pulled that horse. And if you know anything about horses, he pulled that horse's head all the way around where dead gone near touched that saddle. Well, when the horses like that, he came buck. He can't do much of nothing, but you'd run around in a circle. And when he did that, hold jumped up on that horse, and the second hit Buck hit that horse's saddle. He turned that rein loose and let him slip through his fingers and the horse took off. And on the first book he made Holt pulled a pistol, and well at that shot, that horse took all running, and then he slowed down enough to start bucking again. Hope shot again. Every time he'd go to buck, Holk would shoot up in the air and nick thing, they ain't no holder running out through the plane shooting that gun. Popp said, after about fifteen in a minute, Hope come walking back in that hard, just as gentle as he can be. He said, that's pretty good horse. When I read that story, I was like those cowboys. I had no idea why he asked for six shooters, but it makes perfect sense what he was doing. He said, when the horses bucking, that's when you get thrown off. And he knew he could ride that horse if it was running, that's right. He's like, yeah, the horse might buck me off if it just stands here and bucks, he said, but if that horse is running. And he noted that it was a treeless area, I mean he said it was just vast and wide. And so what a story. These things I think are important to me. They are that story was recorded. I mean, Holt Collier told that story. That's the way he told it, which is so interesting, and and anybody that knows I'm about horses. I've shot off a horse and got bunked off after I shot the boys, after I threw him a gun down. I'm a sucker for a good roughstock ride and an unlikely cowboy gain in the respect of the super punchers. How has this story not been made into a movie? We explained it. But Holt wasn't sure he could ride a bucking horse. But he knew he could ride a running horse, so he shot to make the horse run, not buck. And you ain't no cowboy. If you don't know that trick, try that would offer sized deal Brisbee. For the record, Hank mentioned that Halts stopped by to see soul Ross, who was one of Holt's former commanders in the Confederate Calvary who would later become the nineteenth Governor of Texas and president of the College Texas. A and M. Holt was basically in the who's who club of the Postbell him South. Here's Minor with yet another odd overlap of holtz life and Holt went out to Texas to the area of Titus County, Texas. I would read all this stuff in my research, and I had I just couldn't believe it. Until I corroborated with another source, and I corroborated everything except one item. He says in Texas he met Frank James with the Jesse James gang, and I was unable to corroborate that. But then I did my research on the James Gang, and sure enough, when they would take a break out of ribbing people in Missouri in Arkansas and they would go down to this area of Texas during the same period of time. So it's possible. That possible. But he said, well, why would he tell a reporter who interviewed I met Frank James. That's that's just such a random fact for him to do. But so I believe it, but I never was able to, you know, so solidly corroborated Frank James. He was the older brother of the notorious outlaw Jesse James, and Frank was involved in at least four bank robberies. The only reason I doubt this story is I figure if hold had found him, he had killed him or hog tied him and turned him in for the bounty. Frank was a secessionist for Missouri and fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War before he became a criminal. Interestingly, in two five months after his brother Jesse James was killed, Frank James made an appointment with the governor of Missouri to turn himself in. This was back when hardened criminals had some nobility and drama. He's quoted as saying to the governor as he handed him his pistol. Quote, I've been hunted for twenty one years, have literally lived in the saddle, have never known a day of perfect peace. It was a long, anxious, inexorable, eternal vigil end of quote. Anyway, Holt said he met Frank James and minor and I believe him. And for any of you traveling through Waco, Texas, here's something for you to go see. And we don't know a lot about the two years he stayed out in Texas except we know who that he went out there, and he stayed on a ranch with his guys he knew, and he rode with and Saul Ross, who had been the commander of the Night Texas Cavalry as what would have it. And there's a there's a wonderful work of art in Waco, Texas. The largest is I've been describing me as the largest bronze work of art in the state of Texas takes up several lakers and his ten or twelve hit a longhorn cattle are all at one in the half size, and then the three cowboys. If you know your your history of of Waco, Texas, all these cattle uh drives would go through Waco. Somebody came up with the ideals build a bridge, a big wide bridge, and charge of dollar ahead for these cattle. And so the city of Waco started making a lot of money. Bridge is still there. It's wonderful spot. And uh. But they said, let's let's build these bronze longhorns and these cowboys to herd these cattle across this bridge. And and somebody out there had read my book and they made a significant contribution for this project. And his only consideration was, I will contribute the money as long as you make one of these cowboys whole cager. So they did. Uh. Looks just like Holtz wearing his van Dyke Beard got to say. It turned up in the front, but you wouldn't know his hold. But if you look at I think it's his left heel and carved into his left hill. It's his Holt car. Here there's a bronze statue of Holt in Waco, Texas. I like it. Post a picture and tag me on Instagram if you're down there and you see that statue. This was done in modern times, and Holt would have never known anything about it. I'm torn when I learned about these guys that live their whole lives without many public accolades, and then after they're dead, they make statues of them. I'm not saying it's wrong, It's just a shame that they never knew such as life. I guess, well, let's pick back up with holtz life in Texas. He only spent about two years out there. And remember he's running from trouble. Holt is out of Texas. He's working as a cowhan on one of these ranches. Word comes to him that his mentor, former master, Howell Haines, has been killed in a knife fight in Greenville, Mississippi. We already know how Heinz is a scrapper, but in this situation, he's with a friend in a bar restaurant in Greenville. Now, Howell has never taken the oath. He's got friends who have taken oath. You got to take the oath to get your voting rights back to become a citizen, and every Confederate who he's got to take an oath of loyalty to the United States. Uh, and then he's restored to all his civil rights. Howell Haines never does that, and he gets into an argument with Dr Blanton, who's one of the memory of one of the founding families in Greenville who had taken the oath, and they get into an argument. It's just like I guess left and the right argue today, and I'm sure alcohol is pretty significantly involved. And Howell tries to break up a fight. How's in the middle of it, of course, but at the moment this happens, he tries to break up the fight, and Blanton, who's already pulled out of life, goes to stab the other guy, and he stabs how heins, how dies in agony after about three days. I'm sure infection said in and all that kind of thing, and he passes away word somehow gets out to Texas and whole Kier immediately leaves. He doesn't waste any time. He's coming back. He's gonna find Dr Blanton. He's gonna kill Dr Bland. He's got revenge on his mind, and Hope comes back to Greenville, Mississippi, and guess what. Dr Blanton has left town. He doesn't come back for six years because he knows Holt and holts reputation is well known in the community. Holt has now come back to Greenville, Mississippi, and he's dead set on avenging his former slave owner. How heinz who was killed by this Dr Blatton. But a woman steps in to advocate for the dock with Holt. She's known as the Mother of Greenville. Here's how after the Yankees burned grendled down during the Civil War, everybody came home, folks said had lived him, moved out in the country, living wherever they could stay out John and then the engineer that laid out Vicksburg, that got him to come up here and lay out the streets for new Greenville. And Ms Blanton gave the land. That's why she's called the Mother of Greenville. And he gave the land for new grand for the new Greenville to be built back. And it was after the doctor and howl hein got into that that I who knew what he had to do. He had to do something again. And yet Miss Blanton asked him not to, and Hope let it go. He was going to go kill the doctors, that right, She said, don't kill him, and he said, okay, because he was. After a while, Miss Blanton got to Hope and asked him not to have retribution, and he respected what she and and that's what it did. Holt call your respected the wishes of the mother of Greenville, Miss Blanton. Interesting stuff. Is it integrity when you honor a man's wife who politely asked you not to kill her husband and you decide not to in an odd way, it seems like it is. But we're gonna get back to the story. Holtz now back in Greenville to attend to hal Heine's funeral and to show mercy to Dr. Blatton, but he's found himself in danger once again. Here's minor. So here we are. It's eighteen and the South is still under reconstruction. Those same men who had served under James King are still occupying Greenville, Mississippi, and when they learned Holt is back in town, they arrest him and they charge him again with the killing of James King, even though he's already been found not guilty. Has to go through some to get the charges dropped and get him released. He gets arrested again, multiple times. He gets arrested, and I think it every time he's arrested, there's a certain element of exposure there because he could have been Lynch. You remember when I told you it's a wondering Holt lived to be ninety years old. He's only now in his early twenties, and he's evaded many scrapes with death and these won't be the last. In the first podcast, I dropped the bomb that Holt hunted with President Theodore Roosevelt, which we'll talk about in episode three. But here's where we're at. He's been acquitted of the murder, and the verdict made it unsafe for Hope to be in Mississippi and he had to get the heck out of Dodge. Here's Minor with one of the most mysterious stories about a confession that Holt made. Well, right now, we don't know that Hope killed man. We don't know who killed James A. King until nineteen o two. Is the first time he ever confesses to anybody? And who did he confess to? Theodore Roosevelt? How do we know that one of the members of the nineteen o two hunt, wrote an article about the hunt, and in that article he gives one paragraph to the fact that Theodore Roosevelt pressed Hod Carrier to tell him whether or not he had killed James King. And in that article he says, Holt admitted to killing James King. But that's another story for another article. Now he said, he said he killed him. This is what he said. He said he killed him in a duel in the cane brake. But that's a story for another article. And of course it was never really if a living person admits to a murder, there's no there's no statute of limitations. We're moving forward to nineteen o two when he makes this confession. The killing took place in the eighteen sixty six on this hunt, at the moment around that campfire and whole Carrier is telling Theodore Roosevelt, yes, I killed James King and a duel in the cane break Another participant standing right next to him is Leroy Percy, who was William Alexander Percy's son, so his dad was there. I don't know what transpired around that campfire, but I like to think who Carrier refused to tell Theodore Roosevelt what happened. And this is a fact, he says, until he asked Leroy Percy would be all right if I told the President of the United States. And Leroy Percy told Holt it's okay to tell the president, and he told the President again. All we know is what he told him was a duel in the cane break. I'm sure he gave him more details. But in my imagination, I like to think that Theodore Roosevelt said, I'm gonna give you a pardon. I got to hear what this story is. You know, you got a president actually maybe the safest man he could tell the story to Theodore Rose if he knew he had favorite with Theodore Roosevelt followed hole to round the camp site, asking him questions, because you know, Theodore Roosevelt was this great huntsman, adored other huntsman, you know who, according to everybody was on that hunt. They talked about how Theodore Roosevelt followed whole colity around that most. He's the guy that Roosevelt most respected out of all those guys. Roosevelt had a Confederate connection. He had two uncles that served in the Confederate from Georgia. Theodore Roosevelt was drawn to hope. There's no question about it, and he wanted to know what happened to James King. And he wasn't gonna leave that hunt without knowing. You're sitting around a fire, camp fire, this is four or five nights, and you're telling these tales, you're sharing experiences. Things loosen up. I wish you had more details, but I don't doubt it for a minute that it was a duel in the can break, just like he said when I when I came out with the book, I initially had used the word murder, and one of the editors read it and I said, wait a minute, mind, and we don't want to portray Holt as a murderer. Do do we know that now? So I guess I didn't think about it when I used that term. And he says, well, what do we know about to kill it? I said, all we know is it's a duel in the cane break. He says, well, that's what you need to put in there, the duel and the cane brakes. It's wild to me that a national publication would have printed a murder confession in their paper, but nothing was ever done about it. Holt wasn't pardoned by Roosevelt because he'd never been convicted. It's a mystery, but the article was never refuted by Holt or the Percy's that we know of. It must have happened that way around that campfire. However, we're getting way ahead of ourselves by like thirty years, and it's stressing me out. The best way to run a good story is to cut to the punch line too quick. My wife Misty knows about that's my pet peeve, and the Roosevelt hunt is the punchline, which took place in nineteen o two. So let's go back thirty years seventy. So Hold his left Texas and his back in Greenville, but has found it an inhospitable place to chill. So he turns to something he's always loved and been good at, bear hunting. So he realizes at that point he needs to get out of town. And what does he know how to do best? He knows how to hunt. Now here we are, it's several years after the Civil War. You've got timber people have moved, and you've got new people coming in. You've got railroads being you've got a significant labor force, and it need to be fed. And you still can't have livestock because it's still flooding every year. So it's primarily timber. I mean, this is almost naturally the delta would be almost timber. All wilderness, I mean, the amount of ground that has been cleared for cultivation is minuscule compared to the amount of wilderness that's out there. So there's a lot of hunting to be done, there's a lot of feeding to be done. People willing to pay money for animal carcasses. And so Hold has a brother named Marshall who has a little stable in town. And Marshall puts him up in the wagon and he goes out, I'm going to guess October November, and he'll go hunt and fill that wagon up full of meat, bring it in and sell it, go out and sell it. And that essentially market hunting, big, big part of market hunting southward. If if there were a railroad crew working on site, he'd right up with a wagon full of meat and sell it to him. They look forward to. He wouldn't only want to do any I mean, but so you got hold of a professional, legitimate professional, legitimate profession and bear meat was a big ticket item. And Holt started this about eighteen seventy and this was his career. When he was not hunting, he was helping his brother marshal at in the stable or in the springtime, he would follow the fares. He was a trade. He get on the train, go down to Florida, go out to Texas. He would live like how it taught him to live a big gambler, I think like the ladies. And he spent and all his money and which there's even one time one of the metcasts somebody had sent him some money to get back because he'd spend it off. In about eighteen seventy, Holt Collier becomes a market hunter, primarily for black bear in the American jungle that was the Mississippi Delta. At this time, not much of Mississippi was developed, and fast sections of it were basically virgin wilderness. Another interesting thing is that Mississippi was settled west to east, which is opposite of almost every other place in America, because the access point was the Mississippi River on the western edge of the state. We introduced Jonathan Wilkins on the first episode. Here he is talking about the wild place Holt was about to make a living on if you start thinking about a place that is thick and lush and green, and there's all these different things that can hurt you and sting you invite you, and you've got alligators, and you've got poisonous snakes, and then it's also the realm of this version of charismatic megafauna that we no longer even associate with those regions. Right Like we think of black bears now as mountain creatures, but for so much of their existence in North America, there were also swamp creatures. So you're dealing with something that's you're dealing with the place that you know, I would say tantamount to like the Everglades as far as like how thick it is and the richness of life and also the hazards that can be present. Here's Hank describing the Delta. The Mississippi Delta was the last alluvial floodplain hardwood bottom land to be cleared in America, and it were covered with bear. It had more bear per square mile than any other place in America, and it was great sport for hunters to hunt bear, and it was a good source of meat. Of course, This was the last of the bottom land hardwood forest. The all of the pine and whatever, and the eastern seaboard had been cut out. They had gone out into the great forest in the northwest. Call all that stuff out. You couldn't get in down here because there were no railroad, there were no highway, there were no levis down here at the time. Yet we had oat trees and cypress trees and sycamore trees that were twenty and thirty feet in circumfort twelve fifteen feet in diame, two huge things. This American jungle was the backdrop of holtz life as a hunter. I want to read a couple of excerpts from Miner's book Halt Collier to learn something about his bear hunting. It's wild, but the Delta South has incredibly rich history of bear hunting with hounds. Here are the deeds about holtz market hunting and why he did what he did. This is from the book Halt Collier quote. In these prosperous circumstances, Wholt Collyer recognized an opportunity to earn a living without having to pick cotton or work in the fields. In abundance of wild game and Collyer's knowledge of the vast wilderness made him well suited for an occupation as a professional hunter. Mississippi whitetailed deer was a prime source of meat, and it was plentiful and considered an easy kill. Dear meat was not as much in demand as the meat of the black bear. Deer were small and sold for only thirty cents per pound. Field dressed, a fully grown bear could earn a hunter sixty dollars or more. End of quote. That's some major money. Here's some more from the book quote. With the passing of years, Holt Collyer's reputation as a bear hunter grew, until by the turn of the century that had reached heroic proportions, at least on a local level. He averaged about a hundred and twenty kills the season and kept a book count of more than kills into the book burned in his brother Marshall's house in Collier. Earned more than nine in one season, and was known to have as much as two thousand dollars in his possession at one time. These were phenomenal amounts of money for a black man in the Mississippi Delta, and more than most people earned in a year. When not on the hunt, Callier led what could easily be described as a cavalier lifestyle. He indulged in the one vice that haunted him his entire life, gambling. It is apparently from several sources that he never drank alcohol. At the annual spring fairs, he played poker and pharaoh, and wagered heavily on horse races. In the summer, he enjoyed playing baseball in In eighteen seventy seven, he financed the team that received local attention. It was named Holt Collier's Club from Deer Creek. Following the hunting season, every year, Callier traveled in any direction and to any destination that suited him. He sometimes went to West Texas and followed the spring fairs, he went south to the racetracks and fairs of Louisiana. Most years he would return home penniless. His friends urged him to save money, settled down, and buy some property for a house. Collier did not heed their warnings. He preferred to live in the swamp or with friends while story in his meager belongings at the Greenville Stable and at the home of his brother Marshall. The spring immediately Following his most successful years, Collyer was wealthy by Delta standards, With two thousand dollars in his pocket. He went north to follow the seasonal races and local fairs, much in the same manner as he had done with Howel Hinds in the prosperous years before the war. Collyer was confident that he knew horses and could pick the winners. He took the train north, but soon discovered that a free African American with cash had different appeal to the northern philanthropists. He fell victim to the experience gamblers, who stripped him clean, and he had to telegraph home for railroad fare. This routine was an annual ritual for Collier. Quote. In the spring, I'd go away and follow the races, same as I used to St. Louis and Saratoga and New Orleans and way out in Texas, taken in the fars. Then in the fall, I'd come home and get my dogs together and hit the cane brake again. And I just naturally loved a horse and love to hunt bears. Didn't do nothing except hunt. End of quote. The yearly loss of his hard earned money had little effect on the unregimented sportsman. It was not his desire to be domesticated, and he had little used for money in the swamp. His life revolved around his dogs to hunt and his frolicking around end of quote. And an article, Holt was later quoted as saying, quote, money don't buy nothing in the cane bread makes know how a man's dog don't care whether he's rich or poor. End of quote. That's a pretty philosophical statement. And in this we learned a lot about Holt, but I'm probably most surprised that he had a baseball team. Were you expecting that anybody that is hunting bear with hounds is going to be a houndsman. And here's something that he said about his hounds that confirms it. Quote My dogs would fight a bear three or four days and nights until they almost starved to death, waiting for me to come. Often found him the third or fourth day, tree in or fight me and them both has lived off of raw meat and not cared whether twere cooked or not. End of quote. Holt believed his dogs were the best that ever lived, and that's what a good houndsman is supposed to think. Here's an excerpt for Miners Book on Bear Dogs. Quote. A successful bear hunter relied heavily on his pack of mixed breed dogs to chase in corner the bruin. It is said that a bear dog belongs to no particular breed, that he is an accident, and that of a large number of such animals, only one might be found that takes to a bear hold. Collyer once described Mandy the most reliable dog he ever owned. She had been badly cut by bear once, and afterwards she would hunt only deer wildcat. But when old Mandy would come in and got right between my legs, I knowed it was a bear. No mistake. Mandy never guessed wrong about a bear, not one time. James Gordon explained that there were dogs of varying sizes in each pack. A few rough haired terriers, active and plucky that can fight close to the bruins, nose and dodge under the cane when pursued, some medium sized dogs to fight on all sides, and a few large active curs to pinch his hind quarters when he charges in front or crosses an opening in the woods. End of quote. That's some incredible stuff, and it's really interesting to me. To see the heritage of hunting with hounds that there is in Mississippi and all throughout the Delta. Here's minor with more on holtz hunting career. Eighteen seventy to nineteen o two is thirty two years. It's Holt is credited with having killed over three thousand bear during that time on his hunting exploits. Now, I came up with the line that's more than Daniel Bone and David Crockett combined. I think I'm on target there. I may not be right, but I think I'm on target because Daniel Boney and David Crowdy, if you read their biographies and what they're not in the woods as much as only he had thirty two continuous years in the woods, and it was well documented in the sense that the whole capital ledger at his brother's stable he ended up getting burned up. So we don't have it, but well he I think that's an important fact that he there was a ledger that had twenty one bears when he got burned. But I can give him the three thousand counting without any question because Theodore Roosevelt wrote about this hunt. He gave who call your credit with having killed over three thousand bear. He gave him a credit, and I'm not gonna take it away from him. Holt had a long career as a market bear hunter, but rarely do things stay the same when you're dealing with natural systems and people. From eighteen seventy to about eighteen ninety, bears were plentiful, and he sold the meat, hides and bear grease and made some really good money doing it. However, by eighteen ninety the land was being developed, bear numbers dwindled and they only remained in the remotest regions of Mississippi. Market hunting and habitat loss were significant for the black bear, and it's interesting that the same thing roughly in the same time period was happening in Arkansas. His hunting had to change. It's also interesting and sad to me to see the similar trend with many great American hunters like Daniel Boone and Holt. These guys start with a baseline of robust game populations like dB and Kentucky, but by the time they're old, the game is scarce. I wonder if Holt was sad about the demise of the bear. I'm certain that he was. This was the old order of North American hunting before Theodore Roosevelt and many others helped usher in what we now know as the North American model of wildlife conservation, which has been massively successful for managing big game populations and preserving habitat. I'm certain Roosevelt's time in the Delta with dwindling bear population pushed his then radical ideology about conservation forward, and I'm very glad that it did. Maybe Holt had an influence on him. I bet he did. Holt was good at making things work, so he shifted his market hunting business to a sport hunting outfitting service which didn't take as many bears to make a living. Here's Jonathan with an interesting aspect of using black guides in the South after the Civil War. Again, he's meat hunting, scouting, all that kind of stuff, doing this work that he's you know, got years and years in and has built this reputation as being very good at and that leads him to becoming like a professional hunting guide. Especially you know in the postbellum where there was this there was this kind of strange dichotomy of like residents of the North coming down specifically for hunting, recreation, and specifically to be guided by black guides, because that was kind of part of the narrative and the story and the quote unquote romance of the Southern experience. But you know, he ends up doing well for himself. Before we get further, let's fill in some gaps about Holt's personal life. In eighteen eighty, when Holt was thirty four years old, he was recorded as being married to Rose Collier. Very little is recorded about their relationship, but they did have three children together, Effie, Maggie, and Coley. Not much is known about this family, but by eighteen ninety, Holt wasn't with Rose anymore, and he was married to Maggie Phillips, also of which not much is known, but she wouldn't be his last wife. There was a divorce. In a nineteen old four when Holt was sixty eight years old, he married twenty six year old Francis Parker. She is recorded by those who record stuff like this as having exceptional beauty. Anyhow, Holt would remain married to this woman until her death in nineteen thirty one at the age of forty four. And in the next episode, I'll tell you how many children Holt Callier had you'll be surprised. But there we go again, getting ahead of ourselves. And yep, it's stressing me out. We're still in the bear hunting era of Holt's life. Here's Hank telling the time Hole almost died in a log while bear hunting. Now, didn't mind to tell you about the time the whole Hormole died up in the tree. Hole was on a hunt with several of his buddies. He always hunted with his friends, and he was chasing a bear and a bar run up. He may have already gotten on the bear with his knife, and I think the bear broke loose and ran up in a huge hollow tree that was falling down. And a lot of time lightning will strike these trees and there will be a big open cavity down the middle of the tree. And the tree had fallen down, and the bear ran up in that hole in that tree. When the dogs went up in there were holding ran up in and and the boar was killing his dogs. So Hold goes up in there pulling his dogs out. When the bear decides enough of this, he's coming out that tree, so he runs by Hold and down. Yet the lord of tree laying on the ground, and Hold goes up in there to get his dogs out, and the bad aside. He's gonna come out well in the bad passes Hope as holder, jugging him with his knife and then gets a little bit halfway to the opening and lazying. Then dies and it's hot and he begins swelling up. What Holk can't get out? Then no, not Hold the with his dog. It's the dogs. The dogs out, and the bath come to buy and the bad dies between Hold and the end of the tree. When the Bath starts swelling up, Hope can't push him two hundred pound baar out a hold of the tree. He'd been to die and court Holds had gotten mauled coming by with Thank goodness, some of his guys was close by enough to try to figure out where Hold was and either heard the dogs or found the dogs and realized that that ball was up in that tree and they pulled it about and then he'll come home. Yeah, would have been no way to get out. Holt said that that was the most dangerous moment in hunting that he could recall in his life. He said that he thought perhaps it would have been in the dark but maybe he could have cut the bear up piece by piece and moved it behind him. Yeah. I mean, now that's a wild story and would have been a harrowing way to die. Holt could have been on Metaters, camp Fire Stories, Close Calls audio book. You should check that out. I tell a story about almost drowning, but that's not what we're talking about. We've covered some serious ground on this episode. We've learned a lot about holtz life from age twenty to age sixty four, but we still haven't talked about the most famous portion of his life, when he got at Theodore Roosevelt. But that's coming in part three. As we close, I want to ask Minor about his motivation for writing this book about Wholt Collier. He gave a compelling answer, so I know, just from talking with you, like your research on Holt is fueled from a respect of this man that you never knew. But you you can answer your question. I know where you're going. Why, what does this mean to you? And why do you I grew I grew up in Marshall County, Mississippi, working on a farm. This is a nineteen fifties and sixties during the Civil rights era and I knew a lot of really proud black men that I worked with. They didn't have much education, but they had a lot of pride and they had a lot of intelligence. And I looked up to him and I respected him. I can name you a ton of them, Roosevelt Yarboro, Elvis McKinney, Buddy Young, Aaron Jones. These people are most have been dead forty years. It was almost like they had this story and son told and uh, I just I just Nat Brooks, who's who's was to Holly Springs, what whole car he was to Greenville. But you know, Jim Crow just held these people back. He just held him back. And I just I just always had this misrespect for him. They were all poor, but they are all proud. And when I had the opportunity when I found this, and I thought, oh my gosh, you know, here's the guy who you know, he had money in his lifetime and in his elder life, he didn't have much money, but he had a lot of respect for the community. And these people I'm talking about had respect from the community. But because of the where we lived and in the climate, racial climate, that they just never could really prosper and their story needed to be told. And when I had an opportunity to tell a whole car your story, I kind of I kind of took that which I had been raised with as a child. I mean Lewis John worked with me. We used to get up cattle together, we mended fences together. I spent as much time with him. I knew his philosophy, and I loved the man. He died in his house fire, you know his his story has never been told, but uh, I felt I were with over in Warren County. One of the smartest guys I ever knew, crippled with polio. The name was Jesse. I don't even know his last night. That's all I ever knew was Jesse. But he took a part of Caterpillar D four and put it back together, and I helped. I was just a kid helping him. I was handing him to the wrench. You know, I'll tell the stories way off targets not it has nothing to do with whole carry. But this guy, Jesse, it's one of the funniest stories. We're over in Warren County Uncle's farm. Uncle says, money, You're gonna be Jesse's helper for the next few days he's gonna fix his Caterpillo D six. We didn't know what I didn't know what's wrong with it. We tore that motor all the way down, put it back together. He said, get up there and push it button, push that butt, startup. Ran like a sewing machine. And so my uncle's out tending to other business and I wish sitting. They're putting tools up. And I said, wait a minute, Jesse, And I looked down there as a bucket and it's full of nuts and boats and come out of that motor hadn't been put back. I mean, it's three or four pounds of these nuts and bolts. And I said, Jesse, wait a minute, you can't. We gotta put we gotta put put this stuff back in this motor. You can't, He says, you put that down. I don't saying the uncle, but I just save your uncle five thousand dollars for the repairing, and pucket over in Jackson with a charge in five thousand dollars to make the repair. And then I had two buckets of boats. And when he said that, I had two bug of the bolts. I thought to myself, now that's that's an intelligent man. The story of Halt Collier is one of the most intriguing American stories I've ever heard. It's the tale of a man overcoming a broken system designed to keep him down and him finding a way against all odds to thrive. It's an inspiring story, a challenging story, a tragic story, but also a story we're celebrating. Like I said in the beginning, I doubt any of us will ever forget who Holt Call Your is. And we haven't even got to the best part of his life. And our third episode will cover his life from age sixty four to his death at age ninety and nineteen thirty six. What an incredible life, and I feel honored to even be able to tell his story. I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Greece. I spoke with Minor Ferris Buchanan and he says he's got some pulp Call Your book still available to be ordered directly from his website Www. Holt Call Your dot com. They're super expensive on Amazon, but you can get them directly from Minor at that website. Check that out, and hey, do me a favor. Make a social media post this week about this podcast. Series, leave us a review, and share the Beargrease podcast with a friend. M

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