(1770-1823) - Mike Fink, a character in early Western history, whose well-authenticated performances were so remarkable as to appear rather the creations of fancy than actual occurrences, was a native of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He had little education and made ridicule of what he had. He used to spell his name Micke Phinck and he loved to affect the extremes of barbarous jargon that characterized the language of the unlettered boatmen on the Western rivers. The following notice appeared in the St. Louis Republican of July 16, 1823: "By a letter received in town from one of General Ashley's expeditions we are informed that a man by the name of Mike Fink, well known in this quarter as a great marksman with the rifle, and is the same who sometime since in this place shot off a black boy’s heel to enable him, as he said, to wear a genteel boot! was engaged in his favorite amusement of shooting a tin cup from the head of another man, when, by aiming too low, or from some other cause, shot his companion in the forehead and killed him. Another man of the expedition (whose name we have not yet heard) remonstrated against Fink's conduct, to which he (Fink) replied that he would kill him likewise, upon which the other drew a pistol and shot Fink dead on the spot"