monish
AH elite
Frederick (Fred) Everett (1920-2009), Ivory Hunter
It is hard for many of us to imagine, but there are still a very few people alive today that made their living by hunting elephants for there ivory long ago. The list has dwindled to a mere handful. Among them were Harry Manners and Ian Nyschens, both of whom recently passed. And in late July 2009, Frederick Everett joined them in the eternal hunting grounds, where he can hopefully carry his rifle on the fresh tracks of large tuskers forever.
Frederick Everett was born on 1 January 1920 in Mafikeng, South Africa. At that time, Mafikeng was the capital of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) and the only capital ever to lie outside the borders of its country. His father, a colonial official, took the family by ox wagon and donkey cart through vast stretches of wild country to outposts where Freds first playmates were native children, including those of the San peoples, the Bushmen. By the time most children can dress themselves, Fred already spoke several indigenous languages, rode with skill, could identify plants and trees, track, hunt with snares and throwing sticks, use a bow and arrow, skin prey, and prepare food in the veld.
He could not get along with his father nor with his teachers in the boarding school in Rhodesia, so Fred left home at a very early age and was more or less forced to make a living in the bush. Being really ”bush smart“ helped Fred hunt his first elephant before he was even a teenager, and he had taken the Big Five by the time he turned sixteen. Fred hunted and traded as far north as Somalia and as far west as the Belgian Congo until well after World War II.
After the great conflict, Fred found a job as a tsetse control officer in what is now Zimbabwe, which meant he had to shoot elephant and buffalo to control the tsetse fly. He had married sue Nieuwenhuys in December 1949 in Southern Rhodesia and they raised three children in the bush. By the mid-1980s, living in Zimbabwe had become too much of a hardship and Fred and Sue moved to South Africa to settle in Pretoria. Here he found the time to write down his hunting adventures in two books, Heat, Thirst and Ivory and Tuskers in the Dust, which for the first time made his incredible adventures known to a wider world.
While living in South Africa in later years, his life was by no means easy as he had virtually no pension from Zimbabwe, but he and Sue could always count on the friendship of Fiona Capstick and Adelino Pires, who did much to comfort them both.
Fred is survived by Sue and their three children. He was cremated in Pretoria.
Tuskers in the Dust by Frederick Everett. The legend continues. We learned in Heat, Thirst, and Ivory that Fred Everett had left his home in Bechuanaland (Botswana) when he was only a teenager to make his living off the bush, mainly by poaching elephant. In this second volume, we pick up his story in 1937, just as he starts out from Bulawayo on a series of elephant-hunting adventures that are nothing short of extraordinary. Taking his favorite .404, Everett finds a remote corner along the Zambezi River near Binga and starts shooting elephants to earn a living. With a single elephant license in his pocket, he shoots dozens of elephants, which means he frequently had to move to avoid the district commissioner. Acquiring a massive cache of ivory and rhino horn, he manages to return to Bulawayo where he hides his loot-only to be betrayed! After this scrape with the authorities, he returns to the bush, this time to guide a visiting Frenchman to lion and leopard. Next he moves to the Okavango with his two loyal trackers before going to Zambia, where he finds elephant hunting is good but runs into some bad characters. When he finally returns with his ivory, WWII has started and the bottom has dropped out of the ivory market in the British territories. He tries his luck in Mozambique where he acquires a 10.75 Mauser and has some hair-raising adventures there because the bullets of his Mauser fail to penetrate the skulls of the elephant reliably. He meets all the famous elephant hunters of his time: Harry Manners, the famous South African elephant poacher Bvekenya Barnard, and Fletcher Jamieson. His story of elephant hunting is easily as compelling and just as full of adventure as are the stories of Bell and Sutherland.
Heat,Thirst, and Ivory by Frederick Everett .The story of Fred Everett's hunting career in Africa. Peter Capstick once said of Fred "He is truly one of the last grand characters of the African bush".
It is hard for many of us to imagine, but there are still a very few people alive today that made their living by hunting elephants for there ivory long ago. The list has dwindled to a mere handful. Among them were Harry Manners and Ian Nyschens, both of whom recently passed. And in late July 2009, Frederick Everett joined them in the eternal hunting grounds, where he can hopefully carry his rifle on the fresh tracks of large tuskers forever.
Frederick Everett was born on 1 January 1920 in Mafikeng, South Africa. At that time, Mafikeng was the capital of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) and the only capital ever to lie outside the borders of its country. His father, a colonial official, took the family by ox wagon and donkey cart through vast stretches of wild country to outposts where Freds first playmates were native children, including those of the San peoples, the Bushmen. By the time most children can dress themselves, Fred already spoke several indigenous languages, rode with skill, could identify plants and trees, track, hunt with snares and throwing sticks, use a bow and arrow, skin prey, and prepare food in the veld.
He could not get along with his father nor with his teachers in the boarding school in Rhodesia, so Fred left home at a very early age and was more or less forced to make a living in the bush. Being really ”bush smart“ helped Fred hunt his first elephant before he was even a teenager, and he had taken the Big Five by the time he turned sixteen. Fred hunted and traded as far north as Somalia and as far west as the Belgian Congo until well after World War II.
After the great conflict, Fred found a job as a tsetse control officer in what is now Zimbabwe, which meant he had to shoot elephant and buffalo to control the tsetse fly. He had married sue Nieuwenhuys in December 1949 in Southern Rhodesia and they raised three children in the bush. By the mid-1980s, living in Zimbabwe had become too much of a hardship and Fred and Sue moved to South Africa to settle in Pretoria. Here he found the time to write down his hunting adventures in two books, Heat, Thirst and Ivory and Tuskers in the Dust, which for the first time made his incredible adventures known to a wider world.
While living in South Africa in later years, his life was by no means easy as he had virtually no pension from Zimbabwe, but he and Sue could always count on the friendship of Fiona Capstick and Adelino Pires, who did much to comfort them both.
Fred is survived by Sue and their three children. He was cremated in Pretoria.
Tuskers in the Dust by Frederick Everett. The legend continues. We learned in Heat, Thirst, and Ivory that Fred Everett had left his home in Bechuanaland (Botswana) when he was only a teenager to make his living off the bush, mainly by poaching elephant. In this second volume, we pick up his story in 1937, just as he starts out from Bulawayo on a series of elephant-hunting adventures that are nothing short of extraordinary. Taking his favorite .404, Everett finds a remote corner along the Zambezi River near Binga and starts shooting elephants to earn a living. With a single elephant license in his pocket, he shoots dozens of elephants, which means he frequently had to move to avoid the district commissioner. Acquiring a massive cache of ivory and rhino horn, he manages to return to Bulawayo where he hides his loot-only to be betrayed! After this scrape with the authorities, he returns to the bush, this time to guide a visiting Frenchman to lion and leopard. Next he moves to the Okavango with his two loyal trackers before going to Zambia, where he finds elephant hunting is good but runs into some bad characters. When he finally returns with his ivory, WWII has started and the bottom has dropped out of the ivory market in the British territories. He tries his luck in Mozambique where he acquires a 10.75 Mauser and has some hair-raising adventures there because the bullets of his Mauser fail to penetrate the skulls of the elephant reliably. He meets all the famous elephant hunters of his time: Harry Manners, the famous South African elephant poacher Bvekenya Barnard, and Fletcher Jamieson. His story of elephant hunting is easily as compelling and just as full of adventure as are the stories of Bell and Sutherland.
Heat,Thirst, and Ivory by Frederick Everett .The story of Fred Everett's hunting career in Africa. Peter Capstick once said of Fred "He is truly one of the last grand characters of the African bush".
Last edited by a moderator:
