The Mercer Girls or Mercer Maids were women who chose to move from the east coast of the United States to the Seattle area in the 1860s at the invitation of
Asa Mercer
Asa Shinn Mercer (June 6, 1839 – August 10, 1917) was the first president of the Territorial University of Washington and a member of the Washington State Senate.
He is remembered primarily for his role in three milestones of the old America ...
. Mercer, an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
who lived in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, wanted to "import" women to the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...
to balance the gender ratio.
The women were drawn by the prospect of moving to a boomtown with a surplus of bachelors.
These events formed the basis of the television series ''
Here Come the Brides
''Here Come the Brides'' is an American comedy Western series from Screen Gems that aired on the ABC television network from September 25, 1968 to April 3, 1970. It was loosely based on Asa Mercer's efforts in the 1860s to import marriageable wo ...
''.
First trip
Frontier Seattle attracted numerous men to work in the
timber
Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...
and
fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...
industries, but very few single women were willing to relocate by themselves to the remote Pacific Northwest. Only one adult out of ten was a woman, and most girls over 15 were already engaged. White men, and women of the
Salish
Salish () may refer to:
* Salish peoples, a group of First Nations/Native Americans
** Coast Salish peoples, several First Nations/Native American groups in the coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest
** Interior Salish peoples, several First Nat ...
tribes, did not always feel mutually attracted.
Prostitute
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...
s were also scarce, until the arrival of John Pennell and his
brothel
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...
from
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
.
In 1864, Asa Mercer decided to go east to find women willing to relocate to
Puget Sound
Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...
.
Mercer first enlisted prominent local married couples to act as hosts for the women once they arrived to assuage
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
moral concerns over the propriety of importing single women to the frontier. Mercer also had support from the governor of
Washington Territory
The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...
, but the government could not offer any money.
Mercer proceeded to travel to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and later to the textile town of
Lowell and recruited eight young women from Lowell and two from the nearby community of Townsend, willing to move to the other side of the country.
They traveled back through the
Isthmus of Panama
The Isthmus of Panama ( es, Istmo de Panamá), also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien (), is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country ...
, although in San Francisco locals tried to convince the girls to stay there instead. They arrived in Seattle on May 16, 1864, where the community staged a grand welcome on the grounds of the
Territorial University.
Only eleven women undertook the journey, well under the fifty initially reported in ''The Seattle Gazette''. The Mercer Girls of the first voyage were Annie May Adams, Antoinette Josephine Baker, Sarah Cheney, Aurelia Coffin, Sarah Jane Gallagher, Maria Murphy,
Elizabeth Ordway, Georgia Pearson, Josephine Pearson, Catherine Stevens, and Katherine Stickney.
Daniel Pearson and Rodolphus Stevens, the fathers of three of the young women, completed the westward party.
All but two of the women were married in short order: Josie Pearson who died unexpectedly a short time after she arrived, and Lizzie Ordway, the oldest of the ladies who was 35 when she arrived in Seattle with Mercer. Mercer was subsequently elected to the
Territorial Legislature.
Second trip
Mercer decided to try again on a larger scale in 1865, and again collected donations from willing men. He asked for $300 to bring a suitable wife and received hundreds of applications. However, in the aftermath of
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
's assassination, his next trip east went wrong, until speculator
Ben Holladay promised to provide transport for the women. However, the ''
New York Herald
The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''.
His ...
'' found out about the project and wrote that all the women were destined to waterfront dives or to be wives of old men. Authorities in
were not sympathetic, either.
![Mercer Girls illustration in 1866 Harper's Weekly (WARNER 0)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Mercer_Girls_illustration_in_1866_Harper%27s_Weekly_%28WARNER_0%29.jpeg)
Due to the bad publicity by the time Mercer was to depart on January 16, 1866, he had fewer than 100 recruits, when he had promised five times that many. His ship, the former Civil War transport S.S. ''Continental'', sailed for the West Coast around
Cape Horn
Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez ...
.
Three months later, the ship stopped in San Francisco, where the captain refused to go any further. Mercer failed to convince him otherwise, and when he telegraphed to
Washington governor Pickering to ask for more money, the governor could not afford it. Finally, he convinced crewmen on lumber schooners to transport them for free. Among the financiers of the trip had been
Hiram Burnett
Hiram Burnett (July 5, 1817 at Southborough, Massachusetts – 1906, in Seattle, Washington) was a well-known pioneer of the Puget Sound country, and an honored citizen of Seattle.
Family and early life
His parents were Charles Ripley Burne ...
, a lumber mill manager for
Pope & Talbot
Pope & Talbot, Inc. was a lumber company and shipping company founded by Andrew Jackson Pope and Frederic Talbot in 1849 in San Francisco, California. Pope and Talbot came to California in 1849 from East Machias, Maine. Pope & Talbot lumber comp ...
, who was bringing out his sister and wanted wives for his employees. A few of the women decided to stay in California instead.
When Mercer returned to Seattle, he had to answer a number of questions about his performance. At a meeting on May 23, public dismay softened, probably because the women were with him.
Mercer ended up marrying one of the women, Annie Stephens, a week later, and most of the others found husbands as well.
See also
*
History of Seattle
This is the main article of a series that covers the history of Seattle, Washington, a city in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America.
Seattle is a major port city that has a history of boom and bust. Seattle has on several o ...
*
Bigelow House Museum
References
{{reflist , refs=
[{{cite magazine , author= , title=Emigration to Washington Territory of Four Hundred Women on the Steamer "Continental." , quote=No more curious or more suggestive Exodus ever took place than The Exodus of Women to Washington Territory under the leadership of Mr. Asa S. Mercer. , magazine=Harper's Weekly , date=January 6, 1866 , volume=10 , number=471 , pages=8–9 , access-date=February 18, 2022 , url=https://archive.org/details/harpersweeklyv10bonn/
]
[{{cite magazine , last=Bagley , first=Clarence B. , title=The Mercer Immigration: Two Cargoes of Maidens for the Sound Country , quote=On Puget Sound the scarcity of women was a serious matter. It affected the social, industrial and moral condition of the several communities. It was a subject of frequent discussion and a matter of earnest regret. , magazine=The Quarterly of the ]Oregon Historical Society
The Oregon Historical Society (OHS) is an organization that encourages and promotes the study and understanding of the history of the Oregon Country, within the broader context of U.S. history. Incorporated in 1898, the Society collects, preser ...
, date=March 1904 , volume=5 , number=1 , access-date=February 18, 2022 , url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20609599
[{{cite magazine , last=Engle , first=Flora A. P. , title=The Story of the Mercer Expeditions , quote=The two Mercer expeditions were without doubt important events in the history of the Puget Sound basin: First, they resulted in attracting to Washington Territory many who otherwise would not have sought homes on the Pacific Coast, and who in their turn were instrumental in bringing others to this north-northwest corner of our United States. , magazine=The Washington Historical Quarterly , date=October 1915 , volume=6 , number=4 , access-date=February 21, 2022 , url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40474463
]
[{{cite book , last=Speidel , first=William C. , author-link=Bill_Speidel , date=1967 , title=Sons of the Profits or There's No Business Like Grow Business The Seattle Story 1851–1901 , publisher=Nettle Creek , isbn=9780914890065 , chapter=Immorality and Immortality – The Matchmaker , pages=107–109 , quote=At this point, Asa Mercer, the rosy cheeked, naive young man who had scoured the logging camps hiring "students" for the University, came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea. He approached the Reverend Mr. Bagley with a notion about bringing a load of decent unmarried young ladies from the East out to the town for purposes of clearing the air with wholesale marriages.]
[
{{cite book , last=Morgan , first=Murray , author-link=Murray Morgan , date=1951 , title=Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle , publisher=University of Washington Press , pages=61–69 , isbn=9780295743509 , chapter=Mercer's Maidens , quote=Lowell was a textile town, racked with depression since the Civil War had cut off Southern cotton from its looms, and there Mercer found eleven virgins willing to forsake the land of the cod. They sailed from New York, crossed the Panama Isthmus, rested briefly in San Francisco, and went by schooner to the Sound. They debarked at Yesler's wharf about midnight, May 16, 1864, and were welcomed by a delegation headed by Doc Maynard.
]
[{{cite magazine , last=Marmor , first=Jon , title=First UW president is best known for bringing women to the Northwest , quote=Asa Shinn Mercer helped build the University of Washington with his bare hands, personally recruited students, was the school’s first teacher and its first president. But he is much more famous for bringing shiploads of women around Cape Horn to the then-wild Puget Sound area in the 1860s than for first presiding over one of the nation’s great research universities. The ABC TV show ''Here Come the Brides'' (which aired 1968-1970) was based on Mercer’s 1860s voyages. , magazine=Columns , date=June 1, 1995 , access-date=February 18, 2022 , url=https://magazine.washington.edu/first-uw-president-is-best-known-for-bringing-women-to-the-northwest/
]
[{{Cite magazine, url=https://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-city-life/2019/11/3-seattle-pioneers-you-need-to-know , last1=Jones , last2=Williams , last3=Saez , title=3 Seattle Pioneers You Need to Know – Lizzie Ordway , magazine=]Seattle Metropolitan
''Seattle Metropolitan'', or ''Seattle Met'', is a monthly city magazine covering Seattle, Washington. Its first issue was published in March 2006, and features reporting and feature articles on Seattle events, politics, people, dining and restaura ...
, date=December 2019 , quote=Eager to escape a town crippled by the Civil War—men lost to soldierhood, Lowell’s mills starved of southern cotton—the cadre of spunky young women found Seattle’s bachelor surplus and boomtown prospects appealing. They traveled by ship to Panama, crossed Central America overland, then sailed again to the Northwest. Most of the Mercer Girls wed soon after taking up their west coast teaching positions (one to Mercer himself), but Lizzie rdwaynever did. , access-date=2020-02-18
External links
Original Mercer Girls Mercer Girls chapter of the
Daughters of the American Revolution
The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence.
A non-profit group, they promote ...
Seattle at 150: Ordway, the unwed 'Mercer Girl,' was still well-loved James R. Warren, ''
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington, United States.
The newspaper was foun ...
'', October 16, 2001
History of Seattle
1864 in the United States
History of women in Washington (state)