GAIL DRAKE: A few good women

“He who finds a good wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.”

— Proverbs 18:22

How far would a man travel to find his Valentine? Asa Mercer of Seattle, Wash., sailed from the Puget Sound to Panama, across the Isthmus by train, then by ship up to New England — and back. Twice.

Seattle in 1863 was a pioneer town brimming with forestry, fishing and mining industries. The beautiful Pacific Northwest abounded in natural resources and employment. What it lacked … were schools and women, who were outnumbered 9 to 1. Any female age 15 or older was engaged.

Community leaders quickly realized that if Seattle was going to have a future, it needed an influx of the fairer sex. Not just any women, but well-bred, well-educated, cultured ladies. So Gov. William Pickering appointed Asa Mercer as “commissioner of immigration.” (He was also named president of the Territory University — but he first had to clear the stumps on the land reserved for the school.) He arranged for prominent Seattle couples to serve as hosts for the incoming female guests. Then he headed east to a bastion for high society ladies: Boston.

On March 1864, Mercer stood at the podium of the Unitarian Church in Lowell, Mass., and told attendees that Seattle was a fast-growing town that needed educated women of good moral character to come work as teachers. They would receive honorable positions and good wages. He added that Puget Sound “had a salubrious climate and an atmosphere so charged with pure ozone that disease was rare and death was kept away.” (Actually, two of the girls who travelled died a few years after arrival.) The passage cost $250. He did not mention the prospect of finding husbands. He didn’t have to.

The Civil War was in its fourth year and had ravaged the county, North and South. Fathers, husbands and bachelors had gallantly fought and perished on the battlefields. Lowell was a textile center of 40,000 jobs, but with no cotton coming from the South, there were now few jobs. The prospects of finding a spouse in New England were dim.

In March 1864, 11 adventurous damsels boarded the S.S. Illinois in New York Harbor and eventually arrived in Seattle in May to a grand reception. Within weeks, all of the ladies had teaching jobs. Within months they were all married, except 35-year-old Lizzie Ordway, who was too devoted to teaching and advocating for women’s rights to have time for matrimony. Instead she started 20 schools.

Mercer embarked upon a second expedition in 1866. He had hoped to bring several hundred “war widows and orphans,” but several problems, financial and logistical, resulted in a much smaller group of 100 passengers. Newspapers had criticized this enterprise. New York Times reporter Roger Conant set sail with the passengers on the S.S. Continental on Jan. 16, 1866, and recounted the voyage, including the romantic endeavors of Mercer himself. The self-described “incorrigible old bachelor” took a fancy to “a young maiden of good report and fair to look upon.” However, with “not even so much as a tender look or an evening’s courtship,” he unexpectedly declared his love to her and proposed. “The maiden laughed right in his face.”

After several passengers disembarked in San Francisco, 36 ladies finally arrived in Seattle on May 28, 1866. The buildings were newly painted, the tavern was closed, and the bachelors who greeted the newcomers were clean shaven.

The first wedding occurred a week later, and soon every lady was married, including Annie Stephens, who became Mrs. Asa Mercer. These ladies were teachers and mothers, and otherwise tamed the wild Pacific Northwest. The “Mercer Girls” became the foundation for Seattle’s cultural society, and prominent families today proudly trace their roots to these gallant women to brought civility, culture and education to Puget Sound.

And Asa Mercer and his bride? They had eight children and eventually moved to Wyoming, where he became a well-known publisher and retired as a rancher.

The few, the proud, the Mercer Girls.

At this holiday, those of us with a Valentine should pause and thank our life partner for the efforts he/she made to find us and keep us. In addition, most of us have been blessed with an educated, well-bred, cultured woman who was a part of our lives — often a teacher. Let’s take a few minutes to write a note of thanks to her for the immeasurable role she played in our lives.