Mike Fink

Mike Fink, called "king of the keelboaters", (1770(?) - 1823) was a semi-legendary brawler and river-boatman who exemplified the tough and hard-drinking men who ran barges up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

The historical Mike Fink was allegedly born around 1770 in Fort Pitt, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 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. He and his friends were supposed to have amused themselves by shooting cups of whiskey from each other's heads. Other repeating episodes in Fink's 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.

Besides imagined feats making part of the legend of Mike Fink, it may have also been woven from two (or more) men with the same name. Mike Fink signed up as one of Ashley's Hundred and formed a part of the band that built Ft. Henry. If this man had been the one born at Fort Pitt about 1770, he would have been at least 50 years old. Such an advanced age in that group of men just out of their teens would have been remarked on. (Hugh Glass was called Old Hugh for being in his early 40s.) But no journal mentions Fink's advanced age so it may have been a younger Mike Fink who joined Ashley's group.

Davy Crockett is supposed to have described him as "half horse and half alligator." Fink was supposed to have worn a red feather in his cap to signal his defeat of every strong man up and down the river. He is also supposed to have died in the Rocky Mountains on a trip scouting, rafting, and trapping, in an argument over a "cher ami" (sic), suggesting either that his French was weak, or that he had a side not mentioned in the legends.

The recorded exploits of Mike Fink featured mostly in American broadside ballads, dime novels, and other subliterary texts from before the Civil War era. The first known reference to the character is in an 1821 farce The Pedlar, by Alphonso Wetmore. Here, Fink appears as the stereotypical bully and braggart. He appears frequently in stories involving the Davy Crockett cycle. But Fink lacked Crockett's more admirable traits such as his heroic death at the Alamo.

Over time, the unlikeable features of the character came even more to the forefront, and Fink was portrayed increasingly as a bully who got his comeuppance. After the Civil War, the character began to be neglected; the mood of Americans disinclined them to admire a bumptious and violent folk hero. In the early 20th century there was an attempt to revive his popularity, spearheaded by a Colonel Henry Shoemaker, a Pennsylvania folklorist, who collected Mike Fink tales, and saw the character as a local equivalent to Crockett; but Shoemaker's attempt at reviving the character sputtered.

In 1955, Mike Fink (as portrayed by character actor Jeff York) appeared in two episodes of the Disneyland television series opposite the immensely popular Davy Crockett (portrayed by Fess Parker). Elements of the Fink legend were present in Walt Disney's rendition, but the character was played mostly for laughs as a foil for the infallible Crockett. Keel boats bearing Fink's name operated at Disneyland and Walt Disney World theme parks until they were quietly retired in the late '90s and early '00s.

Mike Fink, as a figure of American folklore, seems neglected today compared to other folk heroes who were his rough contemporaries; he is perhaps one of the least likeable characters in American or any other nation's folklore.

External links

• Another account of the death of Mike Fink (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/sw/fink1.html)
• Mike Fink and the Sheep (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/sw/fink2.html): Fink steals sheep under the guise of a "practical joke"