BENJAMIN V. LILLY…Hunter
by Charles Overstreet
[Reprinted from The Backwoodsman, Richie’s Magazine. A B&W rag full of old sportsman etchings and oldtimey howto stuff. $16/6 issues. POB 627, Westcliffe, CO 81252.]
Seldom is a man born with the right talents to the right season, but such is the case with a gentleman known as Benjamin V. Lilly, reputed to be one of the nation’s greatest hunters at a time when wildlife was abundant in our country. Ben was born on the last day of 1856 in Wilcox County, Alabama. His family soon moved to Mississippi where he grew to manhood. Ben was raised by a devout Christian family in a frontier environment and soon mastered talents necessary for survival in a rugged land; trapping and hunting.
While still a young man, he moved to Louisiana where he became a farmer and trader. But these occupations gave way as he became aware of his love for the sport of hunting large game in the swamps and cane breaks around his home. As he matured and perfected his shooting skills, he became a successful hunter and his reputation as a superb marksman became well known. In his book on Lilly, Dobie wrote “It is doubtful if there has ever been a better marksman among hunters of America….”
In 1904, Ben met and impressed Ned Hollister of the Biological Survey (the forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). While talking of Ben, Ned stated, “…(Ben)…is said by everyone to be the best hunter in Mississippi and Louisiana.” The Survey contracted Ben to send pelts and skeletons for its collection of specimens. Over the years, as he traveled in quest of game to Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, he collected and forwarded to Hollister numerous samples of wild game; panther, wolf, deer, bear, otter, and numerous bird varieties including the ivory-billed woodpecker.
The first of the year of 1906 Ben left Louisiana and traveled to the Texas Big Thicket country. He had severed all family ties (he married twice) and gave himself exclusively to his chosen pursuit; the hunt. In 1907, Lilly joined Theodore Roosevelt in a successful hunt in Tensas Bayou, Louisiana. In his writings, Roosevelt described Lilly as “spare, full bearded, with mild, gentle eyes and a frame of steel and whipcord.” “I never met any other man so indifferent to fatigue and hardship. The morning he joined us in camp, he had come on foot through the thick woods, followed by his two dogs, and had neither eaten nor drunk for twenty-four hours; for he did not like to drink the swamp water. It had rained hard throughout the night and he had no shelter, no rubber coat, nothing but the clothes he was wearing and the ground was too wet for him to lie on’ so he perched in a crooked tree in the beating rain, much as if he had been a wild turkey. He equaled Cooper’s Deerslayer in woodcraft, in hardihood, in simplicity–and also in loquacity.”
As 1908 rolled around, Lilly hunted in Coahuila, Mexico where he stayed for about a year. He moved west to Chihuahua and then to the Sierra Madre, sometimes market hunting, but most of the time hunting for the pure sport. In 1911, wild game was the scourge of the Southwestern ranchers. Almost daily their herds were depleted by lions, bears and wolves, so Lilly moved to New Mexico and found steady employment as a bounty hunter for the local ranchers. Imagine his delight, being paid to do what he loved; he was truly in his element.
Deep in the Animas Mountains he took thirteen mountain lions; several grizzlies and twelve black bears along with a few wolves. In 1912, Ben found himself in Clifton, Arizona earning $75.00 a month as a hunter and trapper for the Apache National Forest; in one week he killed four mountain lions and six bears.
He continued this endeavor for six to eight years, ranging north and south along the Arizona New Mexico border, averaging about fifty mountain lions and bears each year.
Between 1916 and 1920 Ben worked full time for the Biological Survey. On occasion, he captured mountain lion cubs and raised them to full maturity, not as pets, but to observe their habits.
He delighted in learning new traits of the animals and being well schooled in the use of language, he transcribed each observation on his ever present tablet. Sometimes he kept a diary and often attempted to document his life and his understanding of wild animals, but unfortunately for us, he never finished this work. He was an extensive writer and carried on correspondence with many friends.
In 1921 Ben acted as guide for Oklahoma oil millionaire W. H. “Bill” McFadden on McFadden’s magnificent hunt through the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to Canada. For some reason, Lilly left the party in Idaho and did not finish the trip to Canada. For fifteen years, from 1911 to 1926 between Ben’s fifty-fifth and seventieth years, he reached his goal of hunting every day of the year, except Sundays. From his Christian up bringing, the Sabbath was holy, a day of rest; he refused to do anything on Sunday.
Self denial and hardship was Ben Lilly’s strength. He entered the hunting ground without a coat, bedroll or tent. For food, he carried corn meal which he made a corn soup or baked into cornpone; sharing his food with his hunting dogs. For a rifle, he used his faithful, homemade black powder rifle well into the 20th century. He also carried dog chains, an opulently scrimshawed powder horn (Ben was also a talented artist), a cooking pot, his knife and Bible.
For a bed he was known to roll up in the hide of fresh killed bear or build two fires and sleep between them or remove the embers from a fire pit and sleep in the remaining warmth of the earth. For warmth during the colder months, Ben wore five shirts; he bound his pants around his legs with rope to prevent snagging them on under brush. He wore low-top shoes to which he nailed burro shoes on the heels. When inflatable tires became fashionable, he soled his shoes with tire tread and hobnails.
A rancher once said he would walk through the soles of a pair of regular shoes in two weeks. Another friend once weighed his shoes and found they tipped the scales at twelve pounds!
He found glory in discovering a track when it was impossible to note by man or hunting hound.
Ben was extremely strong for his size, 5’8″ and 180 pounds; he could reach out with one hand, grasp a one hundred pound anvil and raise it from its base. When he was 50 years old he could jog ten miles without tiring. His back packs, when he carried them, weighed between fifty and one hundred fifty pounds.
He was known to say, “It’s not the carrying that gets me, it’s taking the thing off and feeling I’m just going to float away.” The only luxury he permitted himself was an occasional cinnamon stick.
Ben used a knife to kill his first bear. When asked about this feat he told the inquirer, “Always stab the bear on the side away from you and it’ll jab its head that way. Just keep stabbing the bear on opposite sides, and it’ll never have time to concentrate on you.” Incidentally, the knife was home made.
Lilly was also an accomplished blacksmith. He made several knives in his lifetime from old files, farrier’s rasps or rear springs from old cars.
He was never considered a conservationist, and few if any field naturalists learned as much about bears and mountain lions as Ben Lilly during his half century as a hunter. He is quoted in scientific studies and naturalists reports who studied wild life in the southwestern states. His comments, observations and writings cover a wide variety of specimens from pigeons to grizzly bears.
Although he spent much of his life in his self imposed exile, he truly liked people, especially children. He spent hours telling tall tales to the delight of his young audience. Although he liked to travel light, he always carried candy when he knew children were up the trail.
Financially, Ben Lilly did quite well for his time. He made a small fortune exterminating cattle killing animals. The bounty was usually high and he was good at his work.
He once claimed he never missed any thing “he shot at”.
To substantiate Ben’s religious faith and keeping the Sabbath holy comes a story told by a citizen of New Mexico who found Lilly standing by the side of the road along Cherry Creek one Sunday afternoon. Lilly waved him down, approached the car and said, “Would you shoot a mountain lion in a trap for me? It’s Sunday and I can’t do it.”
One must remember the times, the government was subsidizing hunters to exterminate the cattle killers, ranchers were also paying the hunters bonuses for their efforts. But Ben Lilly lived by a uncompromising religious code and an unyielding code of ethics. He simply could not stand by and watch an animal suffer, but at the same time he could not allow himself to shoot the animal. Ben was incapable of seeing and avoiding hardship.
Two pieces of his writing tell us much about this man of the Mountains. The first relates his tracking a grizzly on the Blue River in Arizona. “I followed him for three days and during that time I did not have one mouthful to eat” The cold was extreme and he only wore a pair of cotton pants, a cotton shirt and a light sweater. When the bear was final.
