Oregon Historical Landmarks

Oregon’s first sheriff and marshal, Colonel Joseph LaFayette Meek, should be remembered, not so much as a witty adventurer, a part much overplayed by writers, but as one of the very most important—at times the most important—political leaders in this northwest society. True, distance and lack of formal education limited his contribution, especially to national developments. The fact that his mother was a member of the important Walker family, that his uncle Joseph married Jane Buchanan and that his cousin Sarah Childress married James K. Polk might otherwise have opened doors leading to distinction for a man of great natural ability and winning personality.

There were twelve, or by one account, fifteen children in Meek’s Virginia family, too many for one man to educate in a day when schooling was neither universal nor free. Joseph L. Meek chose to go west. From his brother Hiram’s home at Lexington, Missouri, he enlisted in the fur trade in 1829 and continued that wild career for eleven years. Decline of the fur trade forced him to move to Oregon in 1840, driving one of the first wagons ever to reach the present Oregon-Washington area.

The record summarized in the most definitive Meek biography, No Man Like Joe, reveals not only a man with important ancestral ties which he proudly and affectionately maintained, but the fond, doting parent which he always was. Unlike many less responsible trappers, he did not unfeelingly desert his Indian wife and his children, but he took them along with him into the far west.

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Adjustment to family life in Oregon was somewhat difficult for mountain people. It was 1842 before Joe had a field of wheat of his own. Besides, his heavy involvement in public affairs interfered with successful farming. Nevertheless, as shown by a letter written to brother Hiram and republished so widely as to reach London, he was a prosperous farmer by 1845. His north Tualatin plains estate, consisting of 642.7 acres of combined prairie and timber land of excellent quality, later became Donation Land Claim no. 61, notification 122, Twp. 1 north, range 2 west. Here, in the autumn of 1845, Joe hauled lumber from Oregon City by ox team and built the first frame house in Twality County. The old log cabin was made available to Uncle Ben Cornelius, his wife and nine children.

The boards used in the new house were probably one by twelves, sixteen feet long, either set upright to form what was known as a box house, or nailed lengthwise on a frame of hewn logs and poles and covered by a shingled roof. This unpainted building was large enough for a house-warming dance, but very inadequate according to present standards. It was a one-story affair, with an attic, no doubt, that could accommodate one or more sleepers. The effective size of the front room was reduced by storage of saddles, pumpkins, apples, and other produce. Thus, although the long kitchen was adequate, the large and maturing family had little more than one-room sleeping quarters. Used to better conditions in the east, daughter Olive, after her return in the fall of 1862, promoted improvements. Unbelievably, there was room for over-winter visits of relatives.

The successive family houses on the original site no longer stand, and the 1866 barn has been torn down. Fortunately, the home of Mrs. Emma Ross Deardorff, in which she has lived since 1872, still exhibits what are close similarities to the dwelling in which Colonel Meek lived during his last years. Living on the original residential site, now the Ernest Zurcher farm, are Mrs. Zurcher (Marjorie Meek), her husband, and the grandchildren of Stephen A. D. Meek—the great grandchildren of Joseph L. Meek.

There was a “lost generation” of Meeks. The Civil War and racial discrimination in the years that followed were principally responsible for the fact that marriages of all surviving Meek children were delayed until later in life than is normal. The grandchildren of Joseph L. Meek, who are now at the peak of their careers as average, respected, useful citizens. Best known in Oregon is druggist J. Fred Meek who is now, after another reelection, serving as representative in the state legislature.