"Ben and the Boys"

"Ben and the Boys". 1856 Ben V. Lily 1936. Like Esau, Jacob's brother of Bible times, Ben Lilly was the ultimate hunter...but never on Sunday. Not one to focus on acquiring "things" and money, Ben acquired knowledge, knowledge about the outdoors and the four-legged challenges he found there...mainly bears and lions. Cotton and cattle were soon phased out of his life. Starting a few miles east of here on Bayou Bonne Idee and Beouf River, he, with his dogs, hunted South through Tensas swamp, where President Teddy Roosevelt came to hunt with him, then on West through East Texas, Northern Mexico and ultimately to Southwest New Mexico, where he settled down to do his "patriotic duty"...kill the mountain lions and bears that killed the ranchers' livestock. The ranchers paid him, the government paid him, unlike back home in Louisiana, so he stayed. He sent the money back home to his wife and children, who lived two blocks North of this monument. One of his two daughters, Verna, became a school teacher of note: At her death in 1985 she bequeathed over a half-million dollars, in two trust funds, to the Mer Rouge Methodist Church. One fund supports two student scholarships each year, the other, the pastor's salary. Ben Lilly, after a bout with pneumonia, died and was buried in Silver City, N.M. at the age of 80, never having been back to Mer Rouge, but leaving his mark here and across the Southwest.