A trapper involved in the fur trade before settling in the Tualatin Valley, Meek played a prominent role at the Champoeg Meetings of 1843, where he was elected a sheriff.

"[1][2] In Idaho in 1838, Meek married a woman given to him by Nez Perce chief Kowesota; it was customary for trappers to make what were called "country marriages".

[3] 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 the 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.

Leaving in early January, Meek, George W. Ebbert, and John Owens made the difficult winter trip, arriving in Saint Joseph, Missouri on May 4 and proceeding to Washington by steamboat and rail.

[7] In 1850 as Marshal, he supervised the execution of five Cayuse Indians found guilty of the Whitman massacre,[4] despite Archbishop François Norbert Blanchet defending the men as innocent.

They are buried at the cemetery of the Tualatin Plains Presbyterian Church ("Old Scotch") north of Hillsboro, in Washington County, Oregon.

In that segment, a rival trapper, Nat Halper, played by Peter Whitney, pressures Meek to sell his beautiful Indian wife, Tula (Marianna Hill).