A native of Virginia, both he and his younger brother Joseph Meek would spend their lives as trappers west of the Rocky Mountains.

[3] He was educated in the local public schools in Virginia before beginning work for William Sublette in 1827.

[1] He began working as a laborer for Sublette's Rocky Mountain Fur Company in St. Louis, Missouri.

[4] Meek moved to the Oregon Country in 1835 and began working at the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver for John McLoughlin.

[clarification needed] The following year, he served as a guide for a wagon train of pioneers to the Willamette Valley from Fort Laramie, and in 1845 led the ill-fated group that followed him from the Oregon Trail on the Meek Cutoff.