Born in Orange County, North Carolina, July 14, 1853, Marion Alonzo Cheek graduated in medicine from medical school before being recruited by the Presbyterian missionary Daniel McGilvary to work with the protestant mission in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, in 1874. Cheek's relationship with McGilvary and the mission soon turned sour, but Cheek - who was more interested in making money and enjoying the good life - soon set himself up as a businessman in the local lumber business and established a succesful medical practice. He resigned from the Presbyterian Mission in 1886, but despite - perhaps because of - establishing a peronal harem of around 20 northern Thai women - he incurred increasingly serious debts, becoming bankrupt in 1893. He became ill with malaria and dysentry in 1895 and took ship for Hong Kong and treatment in June of that year, but he died of an abcess of the liver while still in Thai waters off Si Chang Island, July 4, 1895.