Mercer Girls

"The Departure" - Harper's Weekly, January 6, 1866, p. 8-9.

The Mercer Girls or Mercer Maids were the 1860s project of Asa Shinn Mercer, an American who lived in Seattle. Mercer decided to bring women to the Pacific Northwest in order to balance the gender ratio. While frontier Seattle attracted many men to work in the timber and fishing industries, few single women were willing to relocate by themselves to the remote Pacific Northwest. Only one adult out of ten was female, and most girls over 15 were already engaged. White men and the women of the Salish tribes often were not attracted to each other and prostitutes were scarce until the arrival of John Pennell and his brothel from San Francisco.

In 1864, Mercer decided to go east to find women willing to relocate to Puget Sound. To satisfy Victorian era moral concerns over the propriety of importing single women to the frontier, he enlisted prominent married couples to act as hosts when they arrived. He also had support from the governor of Washington Territory, though the government could not offer financial support.

Mercer set off for Boston, MA and the textile town of Lowell. He recruited eight young women from Lowell and two from the nearby community of Townsend, who were willing to move to the other side of the country. They traveled West through the Isthmus of Panama, first landing in San Francisco where locals tried to convince the girls to stay there instead. On 16 May 1864 they arrived in Seattle, where the community staged a grand welcome on the grounds of the Territorial University.

Original 11 Mercer Girls

• Annie May Adams (16) from Boston: Planned to sail as far as San Francisco, but changed her mind and continued on to Seattle. She married and lived in Olympia.
• Antoinette Josephine Baker (25) from Lowell: Taught school in Pierce County and married a man from Monticello.
• Sarah Cheney (22) from Lowell: Taught school in Port Townsend and later married.
• Aurelia Coffin (20) from Lowell: Married in lived in Port Ludlow.
• Sara Jane Gallagher (19) from Lowell: Married a year after arriving in Seattle and taught music at the university.
• Ann Murphy (24/age unconfirmed) from Lowell: The only woman among the first eleven Mercer Girls to leave the Washington Territory.
• Elizabeth "Lizzie" Ordway (35) from Lowell: The oldest of the original Mercer Girls. Ttaught school on Whidbey Island, Port Madison, Seattle and Port Blakely. Later elected superintendent of Kitsap County schools.
• Georgianna "Georgia" Pearson (15) from Lowell: The youngest Mercer Girl. She and sister Josie brought their father Daniel Pearson on the trip. (He had been ill and it was believed that a change of climate might to him some good.) Left their mother Susan, brother Daniel and sister Flora in Lowell. They traveled to Seattle with Mercer in 1866. Georgia later married and lived on Whidbey Island.
• Josephine "Josie" Pearson (19) from Lowell: Died during her first summer in Seattle.
• Katherine "Kate" Stevens (21) from Pepperell: Accompanied by her father, Rodolphus Stevens. Kate married and lived in Port Townsend.
• Catherine Adams "Kate" Stickney (28) from Pepperell: She and Kate Stevens were cousins. Kate Stickney was the first Mercer Girl to marry (two months after arriving in Seattle). She died five years later. 

The Next Trip

In 1865 Mercer tried again, this time on a larger scale. To bring suitable wives, he asked for $300 from willing bachelors and received hundreds of applications. 

In the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, his next trip east went wrong until speculator Ben Holladay promised to provide transport for the women. But the New York Herald 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 also were not sympathetic. Because of the bad publicity by the time he was to depart, he had fewer than 100 willing women, when he had promised five times that many.

On 16 Jan 1866 his ship, the former Civil War transport SS Continental, sailed for the West Coast around Cape Horn. Three months later, the ship stopped in San Francisco, where the ship’s captain refused to go any further. Unable to convince the captain otherwise, he telegraphed to Washington governor Pickering asking for more money, but was refused because the governor could not afford it. 

Mercer finally convinced lumber schooner crewmen to transport them for free, leaving a few women behind who decided to stay in California. Among those who financed the trip was Hiram Burnett, a lumber mill manager for Pope & Talbot, who was bringing out his sister and wanted wives for his employees. 

When Mercer returned to Seattle, he had to answer a number of questions about his performance. At a meeting on 23 May, public dismay softened, probably because the women were with him. A week later, Mercer married one of the women, Annie Stephens. Most of the other women found husbands as well.

Further reading;

Who Were the Original Seattle Mercer Girls?