Including--
Holt Collier , ramrod straight at age 63, with horse and hounds during a 1907 bear hunt with Theodore Roosevelt in Tensas Parish, Louisiana.
American Folklore abounds with heroes and heroines--Davy Crockett, Pocahontas, John Henry, Betsy Ross, Paul Bunyan, to name a very few. Some of their stories are indisputably factual--others, well, let's just say Americans have never let historical accuracy crowd out a good story. Most of our tales of folk heroes, though, do tell the truth about Americans--we are a people who love to see ordinary persons do extraordinary things. "What a shame--and how unAmerican-- it would have been had Holt Collier been lost to history, which, he almost was," says Jim McCafferty, author of Holt and the Teddy Bear and Holt and the Cowboys, two children's books about real life adventures of the very real Holt Collier.
Holt and the Teddy Bear, recounts the 1902 bear hunting adventure of ex- slave and hunting guide, Holt Collier, and President Theodore Roosevelt that resulted in the naming of the world's favorite children's toy, the teddy bear.
Holt and the Cowboys tells a lesser-known tale from
Holt's exciting life. In the days following the Civil War, says McCafferty,
Holt traveled to Texas where he applied for a job on a cattle ranch. The
ranch foreman, intending to play a cruel joke on Holt, offered Holt work
if he could prove he could ride a horse. Unbeknownst to Holt, says McCafferty,
the horse the foreman
had in mind was Old Hurricane, the meanest, most unrideable, buckingest
mustang in that part of Texas. "But," McCafferty adds, "unbeknownst
to the foreman, Holt was a horseman of vast experience. He outsmarted both
the foreman and Old Hurricane and, in the process, won the job--and the
hearts of the cowboys on that Texas ranch."
Both books have been included in The National Christian Schools Association [NCSA] Children's Crown Collection, an annual listing of twenty children's book titles recommended by the NCSA "because they are well-written, they promote strong values, and they contain positive and uplifting themes," according to librarian Sandra Morrow, who developed the list for the NCSA.
McCafferty is currently at work on a third book in the series, Holt and the Outlaws, the story of the teenaged Holt's role in rooting out a nest of river pirates from an island in the Mississippi.
McCafferty, a lover of unsung heroes and little told tales, hopes to restore Collier to his rightful place in American Folklore. "I'm captivated by the character of Holt Collier, and I intend to keep on writing Holt stories until I run out of them," McCafferty says.
McCafferty hopes Holt will one day be as familiar to--and as loved by--school children as America's better known folk heroines and heroes. "I often appear in schools to talk to children about my books and writing," he adds. "I've been told by teachers that the book is an excellent source for teaching a number of subjects in elementary school, including units on teddy bears, horses, geography, Black History, and American presidents. Having the story listed with an educational organization like the National Association of Christian Schools, though, lends something of an official validation to comments I've received from individual educators, for which I'm most appreciative."
Published by Pelican Publishing Company, of Gretna, Louisiana, both books are hardbound, 40 pages long, and contain ten beautiful color illustrations by Florence Davis, of Nashville, Tennessee. First editions of each book are still available. Autographed copies are available from the author. Each book is $12.95 [plus 7% sales tax ($.91 per book), for Mississippi residents], plus $1.50 shipping and handling per book. For information, contact Jim McCafferty, Box 5092, Jackson, Mississippi 39296, or at jtm@netdoor.com.
HOW THE TEDDY BEAR GOT ITS NAME
Holt Collier, the hero of both McCafferty books, was born a slave in 1846 on a Jefferson County, Mississippi, plantation. Holt Collier led a life of adventure that included a stint as a Confederate cavalry scout, wild-west-style gunfights, and hunting trips to Mexico and Alaska, says McCafferty, who has written two children's books on Holt Collier. But Collier was best known as a bear hunter--among the greatest of all times.
Over 60 years after his death, Collier is still remembered in Mississippi's Delta Country (but hardly anywhere else) as chief huntsman for Theodore Roosevelt's 1902 bear hunting trip to that region, and for the part he played in a celebrated event that resulted from that outing--the naming of the Teddy Bear.
The night before their hunt, says McCafferty, who practices environmental law in Jackson, Mississippi, T. R. and Collier sat around the fire telling stories with the other hunters. Among that group were such turn-of-the-century notables as Illinois Central Railroad president Stuyvesant Fish; Tobasco Sauce heir John McIlhenny; soon-to-be Louisiana Governor John M. Parker, Huger Foote, grandfather of Civil War authority Shelby Foote; and LeRoy Percy, who later became a U. S. Senator and was the great uncle of the late novelist Walker Percy. Before retiring for the night, Collier jokingly promised the president a bear "if I have to tie one up and bring it to you."
The next day Holt's dogs backed an old bruin into the waters of a sluggish bayou. Unfortunately, President Roosevelt was nowhere to be found. Before Holt could summon T. R., the bear grabbed Holt's favorite dog, a little yellow mongrel called Jocko. Holt couldn't shoot without risking Jocko's life. Gripping his rifle like a club, he leapt from the saddle and slammed the stock of the gun down on the bear's skull. The bear Holt had promised the President lay semi-conscious in the bayou's muddied waters. Determined to do his best to salvage the situation, Holt threw a rope over the comatose animal, dragged it out of the water, and tied it to the nearest tree. Holt's joking vow to lasso a bear for the president had proven all too prophetic.
Holt sounded three blasts on his hunting horn to call in the President and the rest of the party. Expecting an heroic scene of fang and claw, Teddy could scarcely conceal his disappointment when he saw the adled bear at Holt's feet. The crowd of hunters that quickly gathered only made things worse. "Shoot the bear! Shoot it, Mr. President!" members of the party shouted. But "Roosevelt was frequently criticized for his hunting," notes McCafferty, and "reporters from three major wire services were in his camp." Unwilling to risk a publicity disaster, Teddy politely declined to shoot.
Instead of disaster, says McCafferty, the result was a public relations bonanza for TR. Political cartoonist Clifford Berryman popularized the event with a caricature he called "Drawing the Line in Mississippi," a reference to Roosevelt's rigid opposition to Southern positions on the racial questions of that day. Soon everyone in America was talking about Teddy and the bear. Enterprising toy maker Morris Michtom, of Brooklyn, New York, in one of the shrewdest marketing ploys of all time, named his line of stuffed toys "Teddy Bears." They sold so well that Michtom expanded his business, forming the Ideal Toy Company the next year. President Roosevelt and the Teddy bear, of course, remain well known. But Holt Collier, who died in Greenville, Mississippi, in 1936, is scarcely remembered outside his native Mississippi.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION on JIM McCAFFERTY
James (Jim) T. McCafferty is a lawyer in solo practice in Jackson, Mississippi. A 1976 graduate of Millsaps College (B. A., cum laude), where he served as student body president and as president of Kappa Sigma Fraternity. He received a J. D. (1978) from the University of Mississippi where he was a member of the editorial board of the Mississippi Law Journal. He was admitted to the Mississippi Bar in January, 1979.
McCafferty has practiced at all levels of the state and federal court systems, from justice court to the United States Supreme Court. Although he engages in a general practice, his area of concentration is environmental law.
From 1989 through 1991 McCafferty served as senior attorney for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and as a special assistant attorney general. In those capacities he acted as general counsel for the MDEQ and represented the state's interests before the Mississippi Commission on Environmental Quality (MCEQ) and the Mississippi Environmental Quality Permit Board (Permit Board), as well as in the courts of the state. While with the MDEQ, he also served as counsel for the MCEQ and the Permit Board and practiced in virtually every area of environmental law. He is currently chairman of the Mississippi State Bar's Section on Natural Resources, Energy, and Environmental Law [SONREEL].
McCafferty presently represents environmental clients on a broad range of issues, including solid waste, mining, hazardous waste, waste water treatment, air emissions, and oil pollution matters. He also represents clients on general, non-environmental matters, as well.
McCafferty has participated as a speaker or writer in numerous environmental seminars, including the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the American Bar Association's joint EPA Region IV seminar (June, 1994) in Atlanta, and the National Business Institute's September, 1994, seminar on Mississippi Survey Issues. McCafferty was a major contributor to the Mississippi State Bar's Environmental Handbook (1992), and his columns on environmental subjects have appeared frequently in the Mississippi Business Journal and daily newspapers around the state.
McCafferty teaches the sixth grade Sunday school class at Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church and has served on the boards of several community and professional organizations, including the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association, the Friends of the Jackson Zoo, United Methodist Senior Services of Mississippi, and the Capital City Kiwanis Club (of which he is president). He and his wife, the former Malinda Hamilton, of Greenville, Mississippi, have three children.
In addition to his law practice, McCafferty is an award-winning freelance newspaper and magazine writer. His articles have appeared in such publications as Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, Ford Times, and Southern Partisan He is also the author of two published children's books, Holt and the Teddy Bear, and Holt and the Cowboys.
For additional information, contact Jim McCafferty at the Box 5092, Jackson, Mississippi 39396, 601.366.3506 (voice or fax), or at jtm@netdoor.com.