Frances Fuller Victor arrived in Oregon in 1864. Six years later, she wrote The River of the West, the first Oregon work of history to gain regional and national acclaim. This sudden appearance on the literary scene mimicked Victor’s lifelong, nonstop authorship of other attention-getting publications. She seemed driven to call the attention of readers and publishers to her books and other writings.

Born in Rome, N.Y., in 1826, Victor soon moved to Ohio and Pennsylvania. She completed her education at a ladies’ seminary in Ohio and returned to New York, where she lived with her sister Metta Victor. She married, and she and her husband tried farming in Michigan and Nebraska. But those agricultural efforts — as well as her marriage — failed. Returning to New York, she began to think of launching a writing career. She coauthored a series of dime novels with her sister but quickly decided to move to California with her new, second husband — and almost overnight to Oregon.

BOOKS OF THE WEST

Victor’s first book dealing with Oregon — her mammoth history, originally titled The River of the West: Life and Adventure in the Rocky Mountains and Oregon … Its Inland Waters, and Natural Wonders — appeared in 1870 in two large parts. It later was reprinted as The River of the West: The Adventures of Joe Meek — Vol. 1, The Mountain Years and The River of the West: The Adventures of Joe Meek — Vol. 2, The Oregon Years.

The first section deals with Meek’s early years and his rambunctious life as a mountain man in the Rocky Mountain fur trade. He arrived in the mountains in his late teens and stayed nearly a dozen years before moving to Oregon.  Victor portrays Meek as an energetic, vivacious, never-stop young man who soon made a remembered name among the trappers. As one reviewer put it, in the opening chapters of The River of the West, Victor had created a “barbaric yaup of joy.”

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In book two of the Meek history, Victor focuses on several expansive subjects. These include Oregon’s moves toward territorial organization, missionaries, John McLoughlin and the Hudson’s Bay Company, and scattered comments on Native Americans.

As Victor notes, within a few years after Meek arrived in Oregon, he was named to several important new positions. Meek’s physical size — he was 6 foot 2, sturdily built, and assertive in his ways — attracted attention.  Meek served first as a tour guide, then as an Indian agent, and then sheriff — the last, Victor writes, clearly reflected Meek’s “personal qualities of courage and good humor.”

Meek also played a pivotal part in the Champoeg meetings during Oregon’s advances in political organization. He later served in the Oregon Legislature. Following the murders in 1847 of missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, Meek started a long — and dangerous — trip to Washington, D.C., seeking a decision and settlement on the penalties for the slayings. While in the nation’s capital, Meek met with President James Polk and other political leaders in an attempt to push along Oregon’s political organization and national acceptance. The trip and Meek’s actions reveal how important he had become on Oregon’s political scene.

Meek became involved in the conflict that arose in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho among early residents, missionaries, and the Hudson’s Bay Company headquarters in Vancouver, Wash. While Meek supported the Whitmans and accepted missionaries Henry and Eliza Spalding and Jason Lee, his sympathies clearly lay with McLoughlin, the notable Hudson’s Bay leader. Meek much appreciated the generosity, thoughtfulness, and diligent work of McLoughlin. Perhaps the similar backgrounds of Meek and McLoughlin — they both began in the fur trade — was the reason Meek was drawn to McLoughlin. Whatever, Victor portrays Meek looking up to McLoughlin as a hero.

In several aspects of his life, Meek had close connections with Indian groups. Those links began in the trade in the Rockies and Idaho. Meek married a Nez Perce woman, a marriage that lasted a lifetime. In Victor’s depictions of Indians, she employs the words “barbaric” and “savage” on several occasions, as did many writers of the time.  But she never uses these negative words when quoting Meek. He seemed to get along with most Native Americans, although he clearly sided with incoming white residents in their contests with Indians over land holdings.

The River of the West did well in attracting readers and sales — but not sufficiently to support Victor’s full living expenses. Without ongoing salary support and missing a husband’s income — her second husband had died in 1875 — Victor had to find other income.

A possibility soon emerged: She would move to California and hire out as a researcher and writer for Hubert Howe Bancroft, the well-known historian and editor of books dealing with the American West. The new position worked well, and Victor went on to research and write several books on the West Coast and Pacific Northwest for the Bancroft series.

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Sadly, Bancroft never gave Victor credit for her authorship. After nearly a decade with Bancroft, Victor left and returned to Oregon. Once again, she lacked the financial wherewithal to pay her living expenses. She tried all kinds of labors, but nothing seemed to work out well. She died in Portland in 1902 at the age of 76.

Although Fuller never stated it, she must have known that she had created a superb historical-fictional character in her Joe Meek. Fuller’s hero was a man among the people, getting along with all sorts. Fuller’s Joe Meek, though portrayed a century and a half in the past, remains a memorable figure in all ways. He is also a testament to the talents of Frances Fuller Victor as an eminent story-telling historian.

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Oregon ArtsWatch contributor Richard W. Etulain is among the more than 60 Oregon authors, editors, and illustrators scheduled to appear from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7, at the Oregon Historical Society’s “Holiday Cheer” 56th Annual Celebration of Oregon Authors. Admission is free.