Baxter State Park ranger Andrew Vietze has a book Becoming Teddy Roosevelt: How a Maine Guide Inspired America’s 26th President about how Maine guide William Wingate Sewall helped shape Theodore Roosevelt from a clumsy boy “wearing big spectacles and weighing a scant 135 pounds” into a Rough Rider. Among the big turning points for Roosevelt was when he summited Katahdin after his other relatives couldn’t. Roosevelt had discovered that he was tougher than he thought!
Books: The famed TR toughness? He learned it in Maine’s woods – Maine Sunday Telegram – April 25, 2010