Meek, Fielding Bradford, paleontologist, was born in Madison, Ind., Dec. 10. 1817. His father, a lawyer, died in 1820. His paternal ancestors were Presbyterians, who came from county Armagh, Ireland, to America in 1768, and settled in Hamilton county, Ohio. He attended the public schools, and became clerk in a store, first in Madison, and afterward in Owensboro, Ky., and while laboring for his support, continued his studies, making a specialty of natural history. He assisted Dr. D. D. Owen on the geological survey of Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, 1848-49, and Prof. James Hall, in the paleontological work of New York state at Albany, 1852-58. During the summer of 1853 he was engaged with Dr. F. V. Hayden in exploring and collecting fossils, and he spent two summers on the geological survey of Missouri. He was connected with the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1858-76. He devoted himself to investigating and reporting on the organic remains gathered by the government exploring expeditions, and when Dr. Hayden organized the geological survey of the Rocky Mountain region, Mr. Meek was entrusted with the invertebrate paleontology. He also investigated the paleontology of Illinois, Ohio, California and other territories. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Science in 1870. and of several scientific societies, to the proceedings of which he contributed, and also to various state and national geological reports. He published through the Smithsonian Institution with Ferdinand V. Hayden: Paleontology of the. Upper Missouri (1865); Check List of the Invertebrate Fossils of North America (1864); and Report on the Invertebrate Cretaceous and Tertiary Fossils of the Upper Missouri Country (1876) ; and with Professor Hall, Cretaceous Fossils from Nebraska (1856). He died in Washington, D.C., Dec. 21,1876.

Source: Lamb’s Biographical Dictionary of The United States, Edited By John Howard Brown, James H. Lamb Company, Boston, 1899