Wade Hampton

[Bee]

Well, you know there may be a little bias there! (None for me, of course... and I would never ever start anything like comparisons...)

Just tryin' to stir up a bit of business

I need to read a lot more about both men, but it's fun to read other people's opinions.

 

[damYankee]

Wade Hampton was not hunting grizzlies,

 

[diane]

He wasn't Grizzly Adams! John Adams, who was descended from the famous Massachusetts Adams family had a knack for training these big grumpy critters. Having failed at everything else he tried, he started working for Barnum and that's how he got his nickname. He was attacked several times by grizzlies, often using a Bowie knife to dispatch them, and one - dispatched with the Bowie knife - managed to swat a chunk of his skull off leaving part of the brain exposed. Surprisingly, Adams survived for quite a few years with this injury until he ticked off a capuchin in the circus. It poked him in that soft spot and off he went. Yes, Grizzly Adams was killed by a monkey!

 

[War Horse]

He wasn't Grizzly Adams! John Adams, who was descended from the famous Massachusetts Adams family had a knack for training these big grumpy critters. Having failed at everything else he tried, he started working for Barnum and that's how he got his nickname. He was attacked several times by grizzlies, often using a Bowie knife to dispatch them, and one - dispatched with the Bowie knife - managed to swat a chunk of his skull off leaving part of the brain exposed. Surprisingly, Adams survived for quite a few years with this injury until he ticked off a capuchin in the circus. It poked him in that soft spot and off he went. Yes, Grizzly Adams was killed by a monkey!

Really?

 

[diane]

Really?

Indeed so! He started out as a boot maker but decided Californee was the place he wanted to be. Failed at gold mining, lumbering and everything else so he headed out for the mountains to be a tracker. He was good - he had three trained grizzlies he took with him on expeditions which earned him a heck of a lot of respect from the Indians. Any guy walking down the road with three grizzly bears is getting my respect, too! Eventually he quit being a mountain man and put up an exhibition on Clay Street in San Francisco, where his animals caught the attention of P T Barnum. Without Barnum's hype, we would not know anything about Grizzly Adams. But, alas, a little capuchin monkey proved to be meaner than any cantankerous bear...

 

[War Horse]

Indeed so! He started out as a boot maker but decided Californee was the place he wanted to be. Failed at gold mining, lumbering and everything else so he headed out for the mountains to be a tracker. He was good - he had three trained grizzlies he took with him on expeditions which earned him a heck of a lot of respect from the Indians. Any guy walking down the road with three grizzly bears is getting my respect, too! Eventually he quit being a mountain man and put up an exhibition on Clay Street in San Francisco, where his animals caught the attention of P T Barnum. Without Barnum's hype, we would not know anything about Grizzly Adams. But, alas, a little capuchin monkey proved to be meaner than any cantankerous bear...

Sorry, I really need to know about the monkey? I've Never heard this before!

 

[diane]

Sorry, I really need to know about the monkey? I've Never heard this before!

Well, his bears were named Lady Washington, Benjamin Franklin and General Fremont. Adams was first injured when a wild bear slapped his skull off and cracked his neck, then again by General Fremont. The General was ill-tempered and prone to be something of a problem. The injury was reopened a couple more times by General Fremont. However, the little monkey was being trained by Adams for tricks - he trained a number of assorted animals for Barnum - and it got mad, whopped him up top his head and re-re-re-reopened the head injury. This time Adams contracted meningitis and died from it at his home in Massachusetts. Got to say, the monkey had a lucky shot - earlier in life a Bengal tiger had almost done for Adams. Don't know what became of the monkey but it may have found suitable employment with an organ grinder!

 

[Reb]

I read where the bear hunter would have the dogs keep the bear "occupied" and the hunter would come up behind the bear and then dispatch the bear with his knife. Too intense for me.

I had a friend who killed a mountain lion with a knife. He said he had to, as his dogs had treed the cat and he couldn't call them off. He wasn't armed, so he tied his knife to a stick, climbed up into the tree and killed the cat.

 

[War Horse]

Well, his bears were named Lady Washington, Benjamin Franklin and General Fremont. Adams was first injured when a wild bear slapped his skull off and cracked his neck, then again by General Fremont. The General was ill-tempered and prone to be something of a problem. The injury was reopened a couple more times by General Fremont. However, the little monkey was being trained by Adams for tricks - he trained a number of assorted animals for Barnum - and it got mad, whopped him up top his head and re-re-re-reopened the head injury. This time Adams contracted meningitis and died from it at his home in Massachusetts. Got to say, the monkey had a lucky shot - earlier in life a Bengal tiger had almost done for Adams. Don't know what became of the monkey but it may have found suitable employment with an organ grinder!

That is priceless. Thank you!

 

[1NCCAV]

Wade Hampton was a noted bear hunter. This book contains an informative chapter about his hunting exploits: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E4UWTZQ/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

 

[1NCCAV]

Theodore Roosevelt wrote that Hampton had killed "thirty or forty" bears with a hunting knife. But in later years Hampton's nephew stated, "On one occasion, as my father told it to me, a pack of young dogs had a bear at bay, and (Hampton) was afraid the bear might hurt the hounds, so he watched for an opportunity, slipped in behind the animal and cut its throat, a feat which no doubt took considerable strength, as I presume a bear has a tough hide. So he did kill one bear with a knife." - Harry Hampton quoted in Wade Hampton Confederate Warrior to Southern Redeemer

 

[1NCCAV]

The Hamptons bear hunted in the swamps of South Carolina and Mississippi, and in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina where they owned considerable property near what is now the resort town of Cashiers.

 

[1NCCAV]

A party of English dandies visited the Hampton's Mississippi plantation in 1857 for a bear hunt and found riding to the hounds in the southern swamps and cane breaks a bit rough.

Hampton writes, "Today I took them bear-hunting and we killed four. They are not accustomed to the sport. Lord Althrop was with me & he literally had his clothes torn off. I had to furnish him with my drawers, so as to enable him to come home decently."

 

[1NCCAV]

Wade Hampton was not hunting grizzlies,

But I suspect Hampton would have done okay against grizzlies had he tried. Ben Lilly was a noted southern swamp bear hunter that later killed a lot of grizzlies in the Rockies. I reckon Wade Hampton could have done the same.

 

[1NCCAV]

Doubt it was a grizzly you engage one of them with a knife, better have your funeral arrangements made.

Someone forgot to tell Ben Lilly that.

 

[damYankee]

I'd bet on Old Mose in a face off between Wade and the meanest Griz of legends.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/library/2012/08/29/king-grizzly-bears-terrorized-colorado-1904/3207/

 

[diane]

Wade Hampton was a noted bear hunter. This book contains an informative chapter about his hunting exploits: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E4UWTZQ/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

That looks like a good little book - thanks for posting it!

It's interesting that aristocrats like Hampton enjoyed this activity but most frontiersmen avoided it and certainly didn't seek out a bear for fun! There was a reason a warrior was considered special if he wore a bear claw necklace and had the bear's skin wrapped around him. Horses and dogs help even the odds, though, but still...

 

[1NCCAV]

It's interesting that aristocrats like Hampton enjoyed this activity but most frontiersmen avoided it and certainly didn't seek out a bear for fun!

Most southern frontiersmen in the 18th and 19th Centuries were busy with lots of things - getting in a corn crop, cutting firewood, trapping fur, etc. - and probably hunted bear only when they needed a hide and the tallow. But there were notable exceptions. Crockett, for instance.

 

[Yankeedave]

Or killed them to keep a distance. the meat was et and the fur done as needed trade probably cause after a few pelts its money in the spring.

 

[1NCCAV]

I'd bet on Old Mose in a face off between Wade and the meanest Griz of legends.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/library/2012/08/29/king-grizzly-bears-terrorized-colorado-1904/3207/

Why? James Anthony hunted down Old Mose. Could Hampton not have done the same in his prime? Hampton was a man of great strength and stamina in his youth. He also could afford the best in horses, dogs, and guns.

There were other legendary killer grizzlies in the west besides Old Mose. And southern bear hunter Ben Lilly was the demise of several of them. Lilly was said to have killed six bears with a knife, two of them grizzlies. I don't know how to confirm that, but if you know the history of Ben Lilly it certainly has the ring of truth whereas a number like "thirty or forty" does not.

Hunter William Wright killed a lot of grizzlies in the Bitterroot Mountains in the 19th Century and thought the grizzly was a noble animal but that it had an undeserved reputation for being hard to kill. Wright said in his experience a grizzly was no more tenacious in hanging on to life than any other animal and that he had never seen a grizzly that could soak up the amount of punishment that a Rocky Mountain goat could take and still keep moving.

I reckon Wade Hampton would have acquitted himself well if he had hunted grizzlies.