Archives West Finding Aid

Asa Shinn Mercer (June 6, 1839 – August 10, 1917) was part of one of the founding families of Seattle, Washington. In 1861 he and his brothers helped clear stumps to make way for the new territorial university. Once the building had been completed, Mercer, as a graduate of Franklin College in Ohio, was the only college graduate in town so he was hired as the university's sole instructor. He was the school's first teacher, recruited the students, and was its first president. Later he was a member of the Washington State Senate. He is mainly remembered for his role in bringing the "Mercer Girls" to Seattle--women he recruited to come out to the west to marry Seattle men. Mercer married his wife, Anne Elizabeth Stapens on July 15, 1866, and they had eight children. In 1867 he moved his family to Astoria, Oregon, where he published pamphlets on material resources, and acted as a publicity agent. He moved to Texas in the late 1870s where he owned and published several newspapers. In 1883, he became a cattleman in Cheyenne, Wyoming where he was the editor and publisher of the "Northwestern Live Stock Journal". Mercer moved to northern Wyoming in 1895 where the family started a farm and ranch remaining in the family today. Mercer died in 1917 in Buffalo, Wyoming.