The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning.

WHITEHOUSE: Abraham Lincoln

In 1846, Buffalo Bill, American frontiersman and showman, was born as William Frederick Cody.

CNN: Thursday,

The event in Toronto this week was not a frontiersman's gathering, however, but the world's biggest mining gabfest.

ECONOMIST: Mining in Canada

But to millions of Americans, he will always be the raccoon-skin wearing frontiersman made famous by Walt Disney in the 1950s.

BBC: Magazine

He likens his construction techniques such as interlocking corner notches and cantilevered roofs to those of frontiersman Daniel Boone, namesake of the county seat.

WSJ: Ah, Wilderness! Mountain Man vs. the Building Inspector

In both, a self-reliant frontiersman typically served as a bridge between wild nature and community, often demonstrating that for all the gains civilization brought, something noble and pure was being lost.

FORBES: Steve Jobs, Ted Kaczynski and America's Tech Schizophrenia

In his new book, Born On A Mountaintop: On The Road with Davy Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier, author Bob Thompson follows in the footsteps of the famous frontiersman in a quest to answer the question, why has the legend of Davy Crockett endured?

BBC: Magazine