01Biography
Joseph Meek went to St. Louis in 1828, at 18, and signed on as a trapper for the firm of Smith, Jackson and Sublette. In a dozen years in the Rockies he made friends with Kit Carson and Thomas Fitzpatrick and became famous for his tall tales. In 1840, with the fur trade dying, he and his friend Robert Newell moved to Oregon. On the way he left his little daughter, Helen Mar, with the Whitmans at their mission.
In 1843 he took a leading part in the meetings at Champoeg, where settlers voted to form a government, and he was chosen sheriff. Helen Mar died in captivity after the Whitman killings of 1847. Early in 1848 Meek led a small party east to Washington, D.C., to ask Congress for help, and that August Oregon became a U.S. territory.
02Why they matter
Carried Oregon's plea for help to Washington, D.C., after the mission killings of 1847 and helped win it territorial status in 1848.
03How they died
President James K. Polk, whose wife, Sarah, was related to Meek, named him U.S. marshal for the new territory. In 1850, as marshal, he carried out the hanging of the five Cayuse men convicted at Oregon City of the Whitman killings. He spent his last years lecturing and telling his stories, and died at his home near Hillsboro on June 20, 1875, aged 65.
04Legacy
Frances Fuller Victor's book about his life, The River of the West (1870), is still read as a classic of the fur trade. He is buried in the cemetery of the Tualatin Plains Presbyterian Church, the Old Scotch Church, north of Hillsboro.