Ben Lilly facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Benjamin Vernon Lilly, Ben Lilly
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| Born | Winter of 1856 |
| Died | Dec 17, 1936 |
| Nationality | American  |
| Occupation | Big game hunter, trapper, mountain man, hunting guide, writer, blacksmith, houndsman, predator control agent, pioneer, rancher. |
| Title | Ol' Lilly, Old Man Lilly |
| Spouse(s) | Lelia Lilly, Mary Lilly |
Benjamin Vernon Lilly, also known as Ben Lilly (born in 1856 – died December 17, 1936), was a very famous hunter and outdoorsman from the late American Old West. People often called him Ol' Lilly. He was well-known for hunting many grizzly bears, cougars (also called mountain lions), and black bears.
Ben Lilly was a unique person. He loved nature and was also a very religious Christian. He believed in living a simple life outdoors, far away from cities. He traveled and hunted all over North America, from Louisiana to Arizona in the United States, and even as far south as Chihuahua and Durango in Mexico. Many stories and legends were told about him, making him a part of American folktales.
He even guided famous people like President Theodore Roosevelt on hunting trips. Roosevelt was very interested in Ben Lilly and wrote about him. Ben Lilly was one of the most successful hunters of large predators in North American history. He was also one of the last true "mountain men" in the American Southwest. Even though he hunted many animals, he also helped museums by providing animal samples and observations. He was a complex character, and many stories about him were exaggerated, but they show how special he was.
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Ben Lilly's Early Life
Ben Lilly was born in the winter of 1856 in Wilcox County, Alabama. His parents were from North Carolina. When he was young, his family moved to Kemper County, Mississippi. He grew up there and was raised as a strong Christian.
After the American Civil War ended, when Ben was twelve, his parents sent him to a military school in Jackson, Mississippi. But he ran away! His family didn't know where he was for a long time. Later, his uncle, Vernon Lilly, found him by chance running a blacksmith shop in Memphis, Tennessee. His uncle, who owned a cotton farm in Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, offered Ben a job, and Ben accepted.
After his uncle passed away, Ben inherited the cotton farm. In 1880, he married his first wife, Lelia. He also worked as a blacksmith, but he didn't do that for long. However, he later used his blacksmith skills to make his own hunting knives and traps.
Becoming a Hunter
It was in Louisiana that Ben Lilly found his true passion: big-game hunting. He once killed a black bear with just a knife! After that, he spent the rest of his life hunting. At first, he made money by selling bear meat and wild honey.
Around 1904 to 1907, he moved to east Texas, in a wild area called the Big Thicket. He lived there for three years in a hunting camp with his partner, Ben Hook.
Hunting with President Roosevelt
In 1907, Ben Lilly was the main guide for President Theodore Roosevelt on a big hunting trip in Tensas Bayou, Louisiana. President Roosevelt was very impressed by Ben Lilly and wrote about him:
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.
This quote shows how tough and skilled Ben Lilly was in the wilderness.
Ben Lilly's Unique Ways
Ben Lilly was about 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed around 180 pounds. He was known for his incredible strength and stamina, which he kept even when he was old. People described him as "spare, full bearded, with mild, gentle eyes and a frame of steel and whipcord."
Unlike many people of his time, Ben Lilly did not smoke, drink alcohol, or drink coffee. He loved eating bear meat and especially cougar meat. He believed that eating cougar meat would give him cat-like powers, similar to some Native American beliefs.
He was one of the best "houndsmen" in North America. This means he was very skilled at training and working with hunting dogs. He was strict with his dogs but also loved them very much. His dogs were mostly Southern Catahoula and coonhound breeds.
Hunting in Mexico and New Mexico
In 1908, Ben Lilly traveled into Mexico, first to Chihuahua, and then to the Sierra Madre mountains. There, he hunted grizzly bears and became the subject of local legends. One famous story tells of him chasing a huge, dangerous grizzly bear with a white star that was scaring the people of Camino Real.
He later returned to the United States and settled in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. Starting in 1911, the government and local ranchers hired him to kill predators. This was when he earned the most money in his life. He is even credited with killing the last wild grizzly bear in the huge Gila Wilderness area.
In 1912, he was registered as a hunter and trapper for the Apache National Forest in Arizona, living near Clifton. He earned $75 a month. From 1916 to 1920, he worked full-time for the U.S. Biological Survey.
Contributions to Science
Even though he was a hunter, Ben Lilly also helped science. Starting in 1904, when he was 50 years old, he began sending animal specimens he hunted and trapped to the U.S. Biological Survey (which is now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. His friend, Ned Hollister, helped with this.
These specimens included mountain lions, brown and black bears, deer, otters, and rare animals like the Mexican gray wolf or ivory-billed woodpecker. The most famous specimen he sent was a record-breaking grizzly bear hunted in northeast Arizona, which went to the Smithsonian Institution. Sometimes, he would even capture mountain lion cubs and raise them until they were grown, not as pets, but to study how they behaved.
In 1921, Ben Lilly guided a wealthy oil businessman named W. H. McFadden on a memorable hunt through the Rocky Mountains, from Mexico all the way to Canada. For some reason, Ben Lilly left the group in Idaho and didn't finish the trip to Canada. For fifteen years, from 1911 to 1926 (when he was between 55 and 70 years old), he managed to hunt every single day of the year, except Sundays.
His Hunting Philosophy and Legacy
Ben Lilly believed he was on a special mission to get rid of "bad creatures" by hunting all bears and cougars. He was indeed one of the most impactful hunters in reducing the numbers of large predators in North America. This is very different from how we think about wildlife conservation and ethical hunting today.
The exact number of animals Ben Lilly killed is debated, but it's thought he hunted between 600 and 1000 mountain lions in his lifetime. He even wrote an epitaph (a message on a tombstone) for one of his favorite hounds, Crook, in 1925. It read:
Here lies Crook, a bear and lion dog that helped kill 210 bear and 426 lion since 1914 (n.n. 11 years period), owned by B. V. Lilly ...
Ben Lilly was known for sometimes fighting bears and cougars hand-to-hand using a special knife he made himself. It was a large, double-edged dagger called "The Lilly Knife." He was also an excellent shot with rifles, using a .30-30 for cougars and a .33 Winchester (.33 WCF) for bears.
He passed away at the age of eighty on December 17, 1936, on a ranch near Silver City, New Mexico. He is buried in the Memory Lane Cemetery in Silver City. His simple tombstone says: "Lover of the Great Outdoors." In 1947, people who knew him put up a bronze plaque in his memory on Bear Creek, Pinos Altos, New Mexico.
Funny Stories and Quotes
Ben Lilly was known for his unique personality and sense of humor. In one famous story, his wife asked him to shoot a chicken-hawk that was bothering their birds. Ben Lilly then disappeared for almost two years! When he finally returned and was asked what happened, he simply replied: "That hawk just kept flying!"
Here are some quotes from Ben Lilly that show his way of thinking:
Anyone can kill a deer but it takes a man to kill a varmint.
By "varmints," he meant animals like bears, mountain lions, and wolves.
Property is a handicap to man.
This shows his belief in living a simple life without many possessions.
My reputation is bigger than I am. It is like my shadow when I stand in front of the sun in late evening.
Books About Ben Lilly
