Holt Collier is best known in American history as the guide to Theodore Roosevelt on a 1902 hunt near Onward, Mississippi that led to the creation of the first teddy bear. Collier was born in 1848 on the Home Hill plantation in Mississippi, where he and his family were enslaved. When he was around 10 years old, Collier was moved to the Plum Ridge plantation, and soon after killed his first bear. He became responsible for providing most of the plantation’s meat. When the Civil War began, Collier joined the Confederate Army…
