Matthew Michaels was born in 1804 on the western border of North Carolina. A town called River Mills. As a kid, his name was shortened to Matt by the other boys and then after seeing the way all dogs seem attracted to him he became Mutt. The name stuck and he was fine with it. When he was twelve, his father left to go west and look for more and better farm land for his family. He never returned. After a long illness when his mother died at the time he was twenty Mutt himself made the decision to go west. His dream was not farm land though, but the great mountains he had heard of to the west. With no horse, he set out and by walking and some little distance as a pole man on a keel boat he made it to those mountains. After that his adventures became legends by the time of his death many years later.