Mercer Girls

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The Mercer Girls or Mercer Maids were an 1860s project of Asa Shinn Mercer, an American who lived in Seattle, who decided to "import" women to the Pacific Northwest. This story formed the basis of the television series Here Come the Brides.

When the town of Seattle was new, it attracted hordes of men to work in the timber and fishing industries, but very few marriageable women were willing to move to the remote northwest corner of the United States. Only one adult out of ten was a woman, and most girls over 15 were already engaged. White men and women of the Salish tribes did not always feel mutually attracted. Even prostitutes were scarce, until the arrival of John Pennell and his brothel from San Francisco.

In 1864, Asa Mercer decided to go east to find wives. Mercer had public support even from the governor, but the state could not offer any money. So Mercer talked to some of the desperate men who gave cash from their own pockets. Mercer proceeded to travel to Boston and later to the textile town of Lowell. From Lowell, Mercer recruited 11 young women willing to move to the other side of the country. They traveled back through the Isthmus of Panama, although in San Francisco some of the locals tried to convince the girls to stay there instead. They arrived in Seattle on May 16, 1864, where local men staged a grand welcome.

Many of the women were married in short order, except one who unexpectedly died. Mercer was subsequently elected to the Washington State Legislature.

Mercer decided to try again on a larger scale in 1867, 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's assassination, his next trip east went wrong, until speculator Ben Holladay promised to transport the potential ladies. However, the New York Herald had 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 Massachusetts were not sympathetic, either.

By the time Mercer was to depart with his new charges on January 6, 1868, he had fewer than 100 recruits, when he had promised five times that many. His ship sailed for the West Coast around Cape Horn.

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. A few of the women still 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 he consoled the public, possibly also because the ladies were with him.

Mercer ended up marrying one of the women, Annie Stephens, a week later, and others found husbands as well.

The descendants of the Mercer Girls still make up a significant portion of Seattle's citizenry.