Mike Fink

Mike Fink
An early drawing of Mike Fink, on a keelboat, with rifle in hand, ready to take on anyone, who challenged him, to a shooting match.
Born	c. 1770–1780 Fort Pitt, Province of Pennsylvania (British Royal Colony), present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died	c. 1823 (aged 53–63) Rocky Mountains or Missouri River?
Other names	Miche Phinck, Bangall, The Snapping Turtle
Occupation	scout, hunter, keelboatman, riverman
Known for	For his near folklorish, tales and legends, as the Ohio and Mississippi keelboat riverman, who could outshoot, outfight, and outdrink all challengers

Mike Fink (also spelled Miche Phinck) (c. 1770/1780 – c. 1823), called "king of the keelboaters", was a semi-legendary brawler and river boatman who exemplified the tough and hard-drinking men who ran keelboats up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

Mike Fink was born at Fort Pitt in present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and served as an Indian scout in his teenage years. Even as a teenager, he was an unbeatable marksman, and he earned the name "Bangall" among militiamen at Fort Pitt. When the Indian wars of the region ended, in the early 1790s, Fink, like many other scouts, spurned a sedentary life as a farmer. Instead, he drifted into the transport business on the Ohio and Mississippi—and quickly picked up a new nickname: "the Snapping Turtle."

When he began his career in navigation, he became notorious, both for his practical jokes, and for his willingness to fight anyone who was not amused. His 180-pound frame stretched 6'3″ in height, and the muscles required to force a keelboat upstream would have made him a formidable opponent to most. It was said that he could drink a gallon of whisky and still shoot the tail off a pig at 90 paces; and Fink, himself, proclaimed, on every possible occasion, that he could "out-run, out-hop, out-jump, throw-down, drag out, and lick any man in the country."

The redoubtable but semi-mythical Mike Fink, joker, fighter, and king of the boatmen, voiced the sentiments of his class when he bellowed his boast:

He and his friends were supposed to have amused themselves by shooting cups of whiskey from each other's heads. Other repeating episodes, of the Mike Fink legends, include a tale where he shoots the scalp lock from the head of an Indian, and a story in which he shoots the protruding heel from the foot of an African-American slave with surgical precision. Hauled into court, he pointed out to a judge that his victim would never have been able to wear a fashionable boot if a good Samaritan, namely himself, had not intervened on the man's behalf.