INTRODUCTION.



it may contain, is that I " tell the tale as 'twas told to me,"
and that I have no occasion to doubt the truth of it.
   Seeing that the incidents I had to record embraced a
period of a score and a half of years, and that they ex-
tended over those years most interesting in Oregon his-
tory, as well as of the history of the Fur Trade in the
West, I have concluded to preface Mr. Meek's adventures
with a sketch of the latter, believing that the information
thus conveyed to the reader will give an additional degree
of interest to their narration. The impression made upon
my own mind as I gained a knowledge of the facts which
I shall record in this book relating to the early occupation
of Oregon, was that they were not only profoundly roman-
tic, but decidedly unique.
   Mr. Meek was born in Washington Co., Virginia, in
1810, one year before the settlement of Astoria, and at a
period when Congress was much interested in the question
of our Western possessions and their boundary. "Mani-
fest destiny" seemed to have raised him up, together with
many others, bold, hardy, and fearless men, to become
sentinels on the outposts of civilization, securing to the
United States with comparative ease a vast extent of ter-
ritory, for which, without them, a long struggle with Eng-
land would have taken place, delaying the settlement of
the Pacific Coast for many years, if not losing it to us alto-
gether. It is not without a feeling of genuine self-congrat-
tulation, that I am able to bear testimony to the services,
hitherto hardly recognized, of the "mountain-men. "who
have settled in Oregon. Whenever there shall arise a
studious and faithful historian, their names shall not be
excluded from honorable mention, nor least illustrious will
appear that of Joseph L. Meek, the Rocky Mountain Hunt-
er and Trapper.



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