Stephen Meek was born in Virginia on 4th July, 1805. He moved to St. Louis in 1828 and found employment with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Two years later he became a mountain men in the Rocky Mountains.

In 1834 Meek and his brother Joe Meek, joined Joseph Walker on his California expedition of 1833-34. The following year he joined the Hudson's Bay Company.

Meek continued to trap beavers until he became a wagonmaster in Chihuahua. Later he worked as a guide to wagon trains to Oregon and California. In 1845 he took 500 wagons to Fort Hall and settled with his family in Oregon City. He stayed there until joining the Californian Gold Rush.

His memoirs, The Autobiography of Stephen Hall Meek were written just before his death on 11th January, 1889.