Holt Collier

Infobox Person
name = Holt Collier

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image_size = 200px
caption = Holt Collier at age 61, 1907
birth_date = About 1846
birth_place = Mississippi
death_date = 1936
death_place = Greenville, Mississippi
education =
occupation = soldier, hunter
title =
spouse =
parents =
children =
nationality = American
website =

Holt Collier (1848 - 1936) was a noted African-American bear hunter and sportsman who contributed to popular culture by helping to create the Teddy Bear phenomenon.

Biography

Born about 1846 as a slave in Mississippi, he joined the Confederate military during the U.S. Civil War, serving with Company T of the Ninth Texas Cavalry in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama. At the Battle of Shiloh he witnessed the death of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston. Collier worked as a cowboy in Texas and returned to Mississippi to became a noted bear hunter, killing over 3,000 bears during his lifetime. He served as President Theodore Roosevelt's tracker during the President's famous Mississippi bear hunt of 1902. On that hunt, Roosevelt refused to shoot a wounded bear that Collier had rounded up for him — thus giving rise to the "Teddy Bear" craze. Collier served again as Roosevelt's tracker during a Louisiana bear hunt of 1907. Holt Collier National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi is named in Collier's honor. He died in 1936 and is buried in Greenville, Mississippi.

References

Minor Ferris Buchanan, "Holt Collier: His Life, His Roosevelt Hunts, and The Origin of the Teddy Bear" (Jackson, Miss.: Centennial Press, 2002).

James T. McCafferty, "Holt and The Teddy Bear" and "Holt and The Cowboys"(Pelican Publishing Company, 1991 & 1993).