James T. Whitehead
Born 1819.
Killed 99 Bears.
Died Sept. 25, 1905
Via Gentlemint
Badass Tombstone
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{ 61 comments… read them below or add one }
“We hope he has gone to rest” – The Bears
I got 99 problems…
I killed 21 rabbits in the past year. .. they were eating my plants. .. I know. It is not even close.
guess bear 100 got him before he did
That is the coolest tombstone I’ve ever seen. I guess in the “what do you want on your tombstone” commercials, bear would make an interesting answer and pizza topping.
“What does it taste like?” you might ask.
The essence of manhood is the answer.
It would be cool if he killed them with a knife, but if he shot that many bears his tombstone should have said, asshole.
#100 hid until he was dead!
I agree with C-Murder … except “asshole” should be in ALL CAPS!
Johnny Cash has a song about James “Tiger” Whitehead-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjcegbdjH5g
I hope the people objecting to this are vegans.
Is he proud of that? Glad he’s dead.
Dishonoring the dead is not cool. You may or may not see them again some day.
May your lives never be evaluated by people like you in another time and another place under conditions completely different, under standards as diffenet then as we are now to a poor bear hunter that lived a hundred years ago.
I salute this mans life.
C-Murder, Bill R, and Kenny–Just in case you forgot–this is the Art of Manliness website, I think you might have mistaken it for the PETA site.
99 bears in 86 years, perhaps 2 dead bears each year of adulthood. He may have been defending himself, putting food on the table for his family or perhaps just helping to settle this country ungrateful boys like yourselves.
This guy undoubtably had more masulinity in his little toe, than all three of you put together. It’s like criticizing the coaching of a ballgame that was played 50 years ago and not having a clue what it was like to actually be in the game–pathetic.
Spoken well FlossBoss. I think you are correct about the PETA infiltrators.
Perhaps 99 Bears was a local
Along with being PETA infiltrators, they also might be French. It’s a theory.
Anyone upset about the bears might wanna transfer their membership to The Art of Feminism. Your Man Card has been revoked. Buh-bye
99 Bears !!! Wow he was over run with them- good shootin james. I hope I never run into that many bears.
It amuses me how some people think they are so “good” and open when ,in fact, they usually tend to be the most closed minded. How can you ascribe ‘your’ values of today(not mine, by the way)to a lifestyle of 100 years ago!? Incidentally bear is quite tasty albeit fairly greasy.
You metro-sexual “bunny huggers” need to get life or get your head out of whatever fantasy world your living in. In my part of the world, bears are still killing livestock and threatening “nature lovers” (hikers and campers) from time to time. There were a lot more of them before 1905, so a lifetime record of 99 bear kills may not have been a big deal. Although I don’t know where he lived (and died) perhaps he was overrun with them and they were a good source of food. I know folks here in the Northwest who eat everything they shoot, bears and cougers included. Nothing wasted! This is reality.
C-Murder, Bill R, and Kenny, got one word for you that I am sure you have heard many times – PUSSY!
C-Murder, Bill R, and Kenny…The beautiful hills of Arkansas and Tennessee (where Whitehead lived) are lousy with bears to this day. They can be a nuisance and sometimes have to be killed. Go play with your dolls.
Brandon, thanks for the link to the song. I am a vegan and I still think this guy rocks. I am a female, but a big fan of the AofM. I am not going to apologize for the PETA infiltrators, just realize that they don’t speak for all vegans. And, yes, my name is Tyger White and no, I was not named after this guy. I never knew he existed until today.
Here’s the story for you if people want to know a little bit.
http://www.bigbearcrossing.com/legend_of_tiger_whitehead.htm
I once killed 99 Beers and all I got was a lousy trip to AA
That’s a cool tombstone, I bet old Mr. Whitehead did not have it easy; try to kill anything with a flintlock or percussion rifle you only have ONE shot; perhaps at the end of his life firearms technology was better but he was not young anymore…
I am a hunter but personally will not shot a bear unless I am in danger, always buy bear tags just in case.
I salute the life of this manly man!
Thanks to all your guys who put the story in context of the times. Different times call for different solutions. I’ll be they had bear coats, as well as bear stakes. For the guy with the rabbit problem, my neighborhood has tons of rabbits and they love my plants. I was told to put real blood meal around my plants, especially when I planted them, and the rabbits won’t bother them. It worked like crazy, and it made the plants very happy and full of blooms. Treatment must be repeated periodically.
Good job bear hunter
Very disappointed in some of you fellows. I thought this was “The Art of Manliness” site for gentlemen. Instead, it sounds like a sounding board for REDNECKS.
LordH … In some cases it is a fine line. .. This is one of those cases of rudimentary manhood that is unrefined.
Frankly, I think it’s unfortunate that I don’t have the opportunity to hunt whales and plains grizzly; there are stories around here of young boys hired by wolfers to crawl down wolf dens with a lamp and pistol to shoot the wolves. That is pretty badass.
Pulling the “redneck” card is a cheap shot by a cliched mind. Calling someone an “asshole” because they shot bears is only possible when your entire world is the rarefied air of some sort of major campus with your parents or your government paying the fees; shooting bears may not be the best idea in some parts of the country but to call someone an “asshole” is completely and intrinsically unjustifiable.
Hunters, while not often the creme de le creme of genteelness in North America, still pay for most conservation because of the simple fact that going hunting is a deeply satisfying pastime. The self-interest of hunters trumps the goodwill of almost all arm-chair petalogians.
You call a hunter an “asshole” and then perhap go back to your meal of tofu and greens. Fine and great — I like tofu and greens with fish sauce and lime juice and hot sauce. But remember: every solitary soy bean you eat was grown at the expense of some species; every green you saute was grown on some other creature’s ploughed over habitat. Your house sits on the site of a former animal’s den; your water was diverted from a fish or a heron; your computer is powered by electricity generated by fossil fuels or a dam.
If you’re going to enter any discussion, enter it properly, not with some sort of sophomoric unfounded jab based on some, if not technically illiterate, then philosophically and practically speaking illiterate view of the world.
In short, piss off unless you have something useful to say.
Nicely done Andrew#2, well done.
Perhaps he was just a quiet guy who was one day out tending to the vegetable garden, with a puppy, and then he was attacked by 99 bears (unfortunate) which with all his manliness he then proceeded to defeat during a lengthy epic battle involving a lot of running and punching, only to she shot dead by the owner in a bear suit, aka the missing number.
In all seriousness, I think if they printed it on his stone he was probably known and respected for just that and for the right reasons, possibly anyway. Mines might say ‘Died 19–’ “He was… quite good with adobe illustrator”. Damn, they’ll be moment of realization then.
Heathcock killed 91 VC he’s Manley too
Some critters just need to be killed. We have a similar situation with coyotes and mountain lions now. Live and let live until they pose a threat. Then shoot to kill.
Not to mention wild pigs. These domestic/european boar hybrids are an incredible nuisance now. They will eat and destroy almost anything and are incredibly aggressive towards humans. We need modern heroes like this man to help with our pig problem. They’ll be in your subdivision next. Eating from your dog food bowl.
Nice work Andrew#2. Anyone who hunts knows that its more than just driving out to the woods and shooting. These critics of Mr. Whitehead should at least experience a hunt before demonizing him.
Meh. I don’t see the ubermanly here.
Killing 99 bears just means he hunted a lot in a target rich environment.
Having done my fair share of bear hunting, with both bow and arrow as well as black powder muzzle stuffer, I don’t get the novelty here. It’s not a big deal. You go out into the woods where the bear is known to travel a lot, real early in the AM., then you sit there sipping coffee quietly waiting. Eventually, one walks into view. Raise weapon, aim, fire, dead bear. It’s really not a big deal.
In fact, I dare say, that’s kinda dumb. It’s pretty stupid to kill and hunt to the point that the animal can no longer replenish it’s numbers.
I’ve killed bear, deer, turkey, boar, goose. I hunt every year, and I spend more time out in the woods then most people ever wish they could.
So to put it in to perspective, let me say that the same people who are applauding this guys’ testicular diameter, as well as the soft handed PETA type mommy bois’ crying about it, are basically the same group of people.
99 bears over a life time with no other mentionable accomplishment. Honestly, guys. Not impressed.
@Denny
No, granted — where I lived on Vancouver Island I saw 8 bears in 15 km on the road one morning on the way to work. More the point being not that the guy had testicular fortitude, but that it was no good calling him an a-hole.
It’s a mis-print..Shoud read Killed 99 BEERS.
I have to admit this is a pretty manly tombstone, but I think the greatest is Will Rogers’ and his epitaph of “I never met a man I didn’t like.”
There wasnt room on the tombstone to write….
“In one day….with a hatchet…..while drinking dos equis.”
Our Comrades are right! Global Warming or Climate Change… or whatever name the Progressocrats are calling it this week… It’s a problem. It’s all caused by anthropomorphic (man made) CO2…
and Killing bears or any animal is an awful thing because they don’t create CO2 (they can’t.. they are just too cute and cudly)… only filthy humans do that… so the best way to get rid of the global warming is to get rid of of the CO2 producers… exterminate the humans and we will have all of the world’s problems licked.
We will save earth from the terrible human menace and stop global warming in one go. A full nuclear exchange should kill off most and the subsequent nuclear winter/ice age that sets in afterward should create a nice place for all the polar bears that would have gone extinct otherwise…
All you humans are bad and nasty and your very existence needs to be blotted out…(except of course all of the progressive liberals who sit in coffee bars pontificating about shit they know nothing about – because that’s what they do best).
To those of you that have a problem with what this man’s tombstone says, I think your probably following the wrong website. MAN UP!!!
It’s so easy to judge him having never known him or the world he lived and died in 100 years ago………..
I’m pretty sure I said it would have been cool if he killed them with a knife, not sure how much more manly you can get then that? Mearly stating the fact that using a gun to hunt is for lazy people. Stalk your prey, know your environment, kill with a knife to the neck. But what do I know, I’m just a “pussy”.
I killed a 100 bears once with a single fart.
My last fart was aimed at the arctic, so long polar bears.
I also cook my meat by glaring at it.
I’m pretty sure I said it would have been cool if he killed them with a knife, not sure how much more manly you can get then that? Mearly stating the fact that using a gun to hunt is for lazy people. Stalk your prey, know your environment, kill with a knife to the neck. But what do I know, I’m just a “pussy”.
Personally I know my Prey and my environment well enough to know that quickly and humanely harvesting an animal is much manlier than sitting back in the campus computer lab and stroking your ego with fantasies of dispatching a ferocious tofu beast with a stab to the jugular . Frankly running down a whitetail with a knife through the TN hills is about as likely as your limp wristed laté sipping brethren actually knowing how to field dress it.
Your finger slipped on the liberal trigger and blew your cover, scrape what pride you have left into your European man-bag, get into your robins egg blue prius, and get the #*$& over to the PETA site to report your undercover work was a total failure.
PUSSY.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I have to admit…..a very interesting film. However….it puzzles me that you would glorify the practice of forcing a kudu to basically die of exhaustion but would refer to a man who quickly dispatched an animal with a flintlock as an “asshole” . The latter seems far more humane to me. Not passing judgment on the tribesman, just saying the two cannot really be compared.
frankly the overcompensated granola vibe i got from your post leads me to believe that you were drawn to this film not for the magesty of the hunt….but rather for the slow motion sequences of the tribseman dowsing himself with water. Have you considered that your hostile response to Tiger White could be the result of long suppressed latent homosexuality? Maybe its a different type of “bear” that really concerns you? Just a thought.
Thanks again for sharing the film. very interesting . Have a good day.
Like the old saying goes, “sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you.”