Everything about Joseph Meek totally explained
Joseph Lafayette "Joe" Meek (1810–1875) was a trapper, law enforcement official, and politician in the
Oregon Country and later
Oregon Territory of the
United States. A pioneer involved in the
fur trade before settling in the
Tualatin Valley, Meek would play a prominent roll at the
Champoeg Meetings of 1843 where he was elected as a sheriff. Later he served in the
Provisional Legislature of Oregon before being selected as the
United States Marshal for the Oregon Territory.
Early life
Joe Meek was born in
Washington County,
Virginia,
United States, near the
Cumberland Gap in 1810. At the age of 18 he joined
William Sublette and the
Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and roamed the
Rocky Mountains for over a decade as a fur trapper. In about 1829, the nineteen-year old Meek traveled with a trapping party along the Yellowstone River. A band of Blackfoot scattered the trappers, leaving Meek to travel into what is today
Yellowstone National Park. In a later account included in author Frances Fuller Victor's 1870 biography of Meek,
The River of the West, he described the region.
The whole country beyond was smoking with the vapor from boiling springs, and burning with gasses, issuing from small craters, each of which was emitting a sharp whistling sound. In
Idaho in 1838, he married the daughter of
Nez Perce chief
Kowesota. Her true name is unknown, but Meek called her "Virginia".
By 1840, as it was becoming clear that the fur trade was dying due both to a change in fashion preferences and the overtrapping of
beaver, Meek decided to join fellow trappers
Caleb Wilkins and
Robert Newell in Oregon. On their way there, they met a small group of emigrants at
Fort Hall who were also headed to Oregon. The trappers agreed to guide them to the
Whitman Mission near
Fort Walla Walla. The single wagon that the group brought became the first ever to make it as far west as the mission on the
Oregon Trail, although to get it there they ended up leaving the load behind.
Oregon Country
In Oregon Country, Meek took to wearing a bright red sash in imitation of the
French Canadian trappers employed by the
Hudson's Bay Company. As the French trappers enjoyed good relations with most of the Indian tribes in the area, Meek seems to have hoped that the Indians would take him for a
Québécois and leave him alone. In 1841, Meek settled in the
Tualatin Valley, northwest of
Oregon City, and entered into the political life of the area. At
meetings in
Champoeg, Oregon called to form a provisional government, his was one of the foremost voices on the side of the American settlers. In 1843, when the provisional government was formed, Meek was appointed sheriff, and he was elected to the legislature in 1846 and 1847.
When, in the late fall of 1847, some
Cayuse and
Umatilla Indians killed
Marcus Whitman, his wife
Narcissa, and 12 others at the
Whitman Mission, Meek traveled to
Washington, D.C. with the news of the killings (known as the
Whitman massacre) and the ensuing
Cayuse War. Leaving in early January, Meek and
George W. Ebbert made the difficult winter trip, arriving in
Saint Joseph, Missouri on
May 11 and proceeding to Washington by steamboat and then by rail. While in Washington, where he met with President
James K. Polk (whose wife
Sarah Childress Polk, was Meek's cousin), he argued forcefully for making the
Oregon Country a federal territory. The following spring,
Joseph Lane was appointed Territorial Governor and Meek was made Territorial Federal Marshal.
His older brother
Stephen Meek was also a trapper, and became known for his role in the ill-fated
Meek Cutoff.
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