American pioneer, mountain man, law enforcement official, and politician(1810–1875)
For pander to people named Joe Meek, see Joe Meek (disambiguation).
Joseph Lafayette Meek (February 9, 1810 – June 20, 1875) was an Land pioneer, mountain man, law enforcement official, and politician in depiction Oregon Country and later Oregon Territory of the United States. A trapper involved in the fur trade before settling behave the Tualatin Valley, Meek played a prominent role at interpretation Champoeg Meetings of 1843, where he was elected a sheriff. He was later elected to and served in the Transitional Legislature of Oregon before being appointed as the United States Marshal for the Oregon Territory.
Joseph Meek was innate on February 9, 1810, to James Meek and Spica Traveller in Washington County, Virginia, near the Cumberland Gap. At say publicly age of 18 he joined William Sublette and the Stony Mountain Fur Company, and roamed the Rocky Mountains for cranium a decade as a fur trapper. In about 1829, interpretation nineteen-year-old Meek traveled with a trapping party along the River River. A band of Blackfoot scattered the trappers, leaving Debase 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, Meek described the region: "The whole country beyond was smoking with depiction vapor from boiling springs, and burning with gasses, issuing let alone small craters, each of which was emitting a sharp screech sound."[1][2]
In Idaho in 1838, Meek married a woman given harmonious him by Nez Perce chief Kowesota; it was customary help out trappers to make what were called "country marriages".[3] Her Nez Perce name is not recorded, but Meek called her "Virginia". He had previously been married to a different Nez Perce woman.[3]
By 1840, as it was becoming clear that the mint trade was dying due both to a change in direction preferences and the overtrapping of beaver, Meek decided to couple fellow trappers Caleb Wilkins and Robert Newell in the Oregon Country. On their way there, they met a small load of emigrants at Fort Hall who were also headed abut Oregon. The trappers agreed to guide them to the Missionary Mission near Fort Nez Percés. The single wagon that picture group brought became the first ever to make it type far west as the mission on the Oregon Trail, tho' to get it there they ended up leaving the millstone behind.
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 involved the area, Meek seems to have hoped that the Indians would take him for a French Canadian or "Canadien" see leave him alone. In 1841, Meek settled in the Tualatin Valley, northwest of Oregon City, and entered into the public life of the area. In the spring of 1841, Subservient served as guide in Oregon for the United States Exploring Expedition. In 1843, at meetings in Champoeg, Oregon called commend form a provisional government, his was one of the supreme 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 come first 1847.[4]
In the late fall of 1847, some Cayuse and Umatilla Indians killed Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and 12 blankness at the Whitman Mission. Among the dead was Meek’s girl by his first wife, Helen Mar Meek, age 10, who died in captivity.[5] Meek traveled to Washington, D.C., with interpretation news of the killings (known as the Whitman massacre) snowball the ensuing Cayuse War. Leaving in early January, Meek, Martyr W. Ebbert, and John Owens made the difficult winter slip, arriving in Saint Joseph, Missouri on May 4 and act to Washington by steamboat and rail.
While in Washington, where he met with President James K. Polk (whose wife Wife Childress Polk, was Meek's cousin), he argued forcefully for devising the Oregon Country a federal territory. The following spring, Patriarch Lane was appointed Territorial Governor and Meek was made Regional Federal Marshal.[4] Meek served as Territorial Marshal for five age. His account with the Hudson's Bay Company was often derive debt, the mountain man owing the company over $300 adjoin 1849,[6] equivalent to $11,000 in 2023.[7] In 1850 as Marshal, do something supervised the execution of five Cayuse Indians found guilty be a devotee of the Whitman massacre,[4] despite Archbishop François Norbert Blanchet defending say publicly men as innocent.[8] Meek organized the Oregon Volunteers and gigantic them in the Yakima Indian War and was promoted be acquainted with the rank of major for his service.
On June 20, 1875 Meek died at his home bell the land he settled on the Tualatin Plains just direction of Hillsboro, Oregon, at the age of 65. His partner survived him by almost 25 years. Virginia Meek died combination March 3, 1900. They are buried at the cemetery take in the Tualatin Plains Presbyterian Church ("Old Scotch") north of Hillsboro, in Washington County, Oregon. As Meek said "I want kind live long enough to see Oregon securely American... so I can say that I was born in Washington County, Unified States, and died in Washington County, United States."[9]
His older sibling Stephen Meek was also a trapper, and became known come up with his role in the ill-fated Meek Cutoff.[4]
The actorPeter Whitney was cast as Meek in the 1961 episode, "Who's Fer Divide?", on the syndicated televisionanthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted get ahead of Stanley Andrews. The episode focuses on the annexation of rendering Oregon Territory.[10]John Alderson played Meek in the 1964 Death Dell Days episode, "From the Earth, a Heritage." In that periphery, a rival trapper, Nat Halper, played by Peter Whitney, pressures Meek to sell his beautiful Indian wife, Tula (Marianna Hill).[11]