The River of the West Life & Adventure in the Rocky Mountains and Oregon : embracing events in the life-time of a Mountain-Man & Pioneer with Early History of North-Western Slope ...

by Frances Fuller Victor

This book tells the story of mountain man Joe Meek. 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 role 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.

Joe Meek was one of the West's irresistible characters-dashing, devil-may-care, cheeky, irreverent, more fun than a playful grizzly cub. It is our good luck that Joe knew how to yarn his mountain experiences truly and colorfully and with only a mite of stretching, and that he happened to cross trails with Frances Fuller Victor, who had the sense to see the worth of his tale as Joe told it-in the raw.

This pre-1923 publication has been converted from its original format for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the conversion.

Genres: Westerns

213 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 16, 2014

About the author

Victor, Frances Auretta (Fuller) Barrett, Mrs., 1826-1902. [from old catalog]
Victor, Frances Fuller, 1826-1902
from Library of Congress website

Reviews

[Lacorota · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once upon a time, I studied the life and times of Oregon's first sheriff -- Joseph Meek. He was first one of the famous / infamous but elite nonetheless mountain men culture. It was a brief period of history. Meek was one of the lucky to attend the 1832 rendezvous (last formal) in Victor, Idaho (battle with the Gros Ventre). Meek was one with wit, charm, and he was a bit of a rascal. Following his brief career as mountain man trapper, he served as a guide for west-bound settlers. Meek eventually settled in the Wilamette Valley, Oregon. I've visited Meek's grave at a small church cemetery west of Portland, Oregon.