Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Ben Lilly

Do you guys think he was the best hunter and trapper of them all?

I handled a partially (unfinished, way back When) engraved '86 in .45-90 that was documented to be his.

Looked like he got tired of waiting, picked it up, and never went back. Talk about "honest wear". It was in Tombstone for a while, 'til someone got out their wallet.

GTC

I heard when he was in his 80's he built a harness for himself, so his hounds could pull him up and down the hills after lion.

There are a lot of books on Ben Lilly but, IMHO, J. Frank Dobie's "The Ben Lilly Legend" is still the best. I don't know if he was the best, but he was damn sure in the top two or three...

If half the tails about him are true then he was one heck of a guy.

There is a guy living that I rever highly as a hunter and trapper.

Ed Stevenson in Alaska. Living his 50 season in the bush - just turned 81.

One day we were sitting in a cove on Prince - Wiliam - Sound, waiting for the bears to come in.

Ed got to talking about the old time hunters.

He regards Ben Lilly very highly - in fact, his son is named after him.

I thought that Ben was know for the 86 in 33 Winchester that he used for bears? Also remember he left his wife one day and did not return for many years, when asked what happened he said something like he started chasing a bear and it just kept going! Interesting fellow anyway. jay

I remember that his wife came in and told Ben that a chicken hawk had got one of her chickens and that she wished that he would kill it. He got his rifle and dogs, and left to kill the hawk. Three years later he returned, his wife asked where had he been, he said you ask me to go and kill that chicken hawk, so I did.

Ben Lilly quotes:


Anyone can kill a deer but it takes a man to kill a varmint." � by varmints he meant bears, mountain lions, and wolves.

"Property is a handicap to man."

"I never saw a man with his face shaved clean until I was a big boy. When I saw him I thought he was a dead man.... walking about, and I was mighty scared."

Ben Lily to a rogue bear, prior to dispatching him with a Bowie knife:�You are condemned, you black devil, I kill you in the name of the law!�

�My reputation is bigger than I am. It is like my shadow when I stand in front of the sun in late evening.�

When a hound came in early , Ben would hold a trial in front of all the other hounds , pronounce the death sentence and then cut its' throat .

If the dogs treed on Sunday , they had to keep him treed 'til Monday morning 'cause he wouldn't hunt on the Sabbath . He admitted to sometimes losing track of the days , however .

Yep , he was probably the outright best hunter that ever was .

He lost his mind at the end . He had burro shoes nailed to his boots to keep the soles from wearing out and he spent his last days tracking himself around the ranch where he was living .

It's ENTIRELY possible that the whole "Authentic, documented Ben Lilly '86" deal was a scam. I think I did mention Tombstone in there somewhere, and that's (counterfits with stories) a stock in trade there.

Pretty sure the one I looked at was a .45-90.

I DO have one of his horseshoes, however.

GTC

That's funny.

This is from Wikipedia, "He was known to many times fight and dispatch in hand-to-hand combat bear and cougars using a self-made custom Bowie knife, more precisely a double edged S-shaped large Arkansas toothpick dagger, apprehendedly named " The Lilly Knife".

For the rest he was an accomplished marksman and used Winchester lever action rifles, a 30-30 for cougars and a .33 Winchester (.33 WCF) caliber for bears. He died at eighty, in December 17, 1936, on a ranch in Pleasanton, near Silver City, New Mexico and is buried in the historic Memory Lane Cemetery in Silver City.[3] His modest tombstone bears the epitaph: "Lover of the Great Outdoors". In 1947 last people that knew him, erected a bronze plaque on his memory, on Bear Creek, Pinos Altos, New Mexico.
"

I believe that there is a Lilly made knife at Randall Made Knives, all steel and double edged. If I ever get to Orlando, the first place I go will be to Randall Knives museum.

there's a bear skin coat that belonged to ben lilly in the old mill museum in cimarron, nm....... (and a bunch of lucien maxwell stuff, of maxwell land grant fame).

Thats the only book on Lilly that I have read but its a good one. If half of the stuff in that book is true then he was one of the baddest hunters that ever lived!

Ben Lilly's grave




Ben Lilly Memorial just north of PA and Silver City

"Truth" is, In the lives of most bear and lion hunters who made a living at it,their stories
ARE TRUE to the point of being unbelievable by most of the populace.

There are some crazy things that happen out on the mountain.