McMeekin was an Irish immigrant born in Ireland in 1857. He came to the United States with his parents and younger sister. When she married and homesteaded on an island in the the Snake River near Hagerman in the late 1880’s, McMeekin moved there too. He devoted his life to art and let Nature be his teacher.

In 1910, McMeekin moved to Napa, California where he lived until his death in 1936. He was known as an Idaho landscape artist and was well listed and a plein air artist.