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Joseph Lafayette Meek (1810–1875) was born in Washington County, Virginia, near the Cumberland Gap. At the age of 18 he joined William Sublette and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and roamed the Rocky Mountains for over a decade before settling in Oregon. 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 to over trapping 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.
In Oregon, 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 Quebecois 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 15 others at the Whitman Mission, Meek traveled to Washington, DC with the news of the killings (the Whitman Massacre) and the ensuing Cayuse War. Leaving in early January, Meek and George 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. Meek served as Territorial Marshal for five years; in 1855 he supervised the execution of five Cayuse Indians found guilty of the Whitman Massacre. He organized the Oregon Volunteers and led them in the Yakima Indian War and was promoted to the rank of major for his service.
In June 1875, Meek died at his home on the land he settled just north of Hillsboro, at the age of 65. His wife survived him by almost 25 years; she died on March 3, 1900. They are buried near Tualatin Plains Presbyterian Church ("Old Scotch") north of Hillsboro, Oregon.
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