Joe Meek: The Merry Mountain Man, a Biography

Mountain man Joe Meek participated in some of the most important events in the Old West. He also had an outgoing, cheerful personality, and loved to tell stories of his adventures. Many of these stories were collected first-hand by Frances Fuller Victor, a "popular" (meaning not professionally trained) historian, and from these stories she webbed together a "biographical novel" of Meek's life (probably more novel than biography) - THE RIVER OF THE WEST. Vestal, in this book, attempts a more authentic biography of Meek, and succeeds for the most part, but not totally. Joe Meek was born in Virginia in 1810, ran away to Missouri, and in 1829 entered the Rocky Mountains as a fur trapper with William Sublette's party. For the next 11 years he trapped and explored the West, participating in the Pierre's Hole fight at the conclusion of the 1832 rendezvous, going to California with Joseph Walker in 1833-34, taking at least three Indian wives, and leading one of the first wagon trains into Oregon territory in 1840, where he eventually settled himself. He farmed in Oregon and became a town sheriff. He became interested in the political affairs of Oregon and after it became a state held a few minor offices. He helped organize the Republican party there and suffered greatly because of the prejudice shown his mixed-blood children. He died in 1875. Meek was a congenial man and made friends easily. He knew and trapped with all the legendary figures in the heyday of the fur-trade period, and was probably familiar with all the beaver streams north of the Green. Vestal's account of Meeks life is thorough, but he's sacrificed a scholarly approach for one of familiarity. Few footnotes appear and there is no annotation; details are left to hang unexamined. Worst of all, he includes invented dialogue (or what appears to be such) throughout the book. For example (just picking at random), he writes: "And Wyeth demanded, 'And why did you shoot him?'" How does he know Wyeth asked that? Is it taken from one of Wyeth's journals? No note indicates so, and Wyeth's journals are not in the bibliography. One can only assume he made up the quote. This is what Victor did in THE RIVERS OF THE WEST, which is considered by most a novel. Maybe future editions of this book will have an editor/annotator to add a serious flavor that the book is lacking. Otherwise it's a competently written (Vestal ran the writing program at the University of Oklahoma for decades), likable chronicle of Joe Meek's life and times.

Joe Meek. Definitely a colorful character of the 19th century fur trade era. Whenever reading books about the early American West, one always comes across the name Joe Meek. He came out west in 1829 at the age of nineteen desperately wanting to be a mountain man/fur trapper. Adventures were many up to the last rendevous of 1840 with the typical Indian fighting, grizzlies, starvation and thirst, etc. He then helped guide the first wagon train to Oregon and had much to do with the first government of Oregon. This is a delightful story of a charming individual. He loved life and people loved Joe, just beware of the oftentimes "backwoodsy" grammar in the book (I could have done without that).