I have written about this in my blog at AbesBlogCabin.org (shameless plug)- but it won't actually post until late June- Lincoln read Cooper's Leather Stocking Tales. This is according to Isaac N. Arnold in his work The Life of Abraham Lincoln. I speculate that one of Lincoln's heroes was Daniel Boone. The Cooper writings further fascinated Lincoln with Boone. I could be way off the mark on this. It's fun to speculate!