Eliza Ferry Leary papers, 1860-1907

Eliza Ferry Leary was born August 24, 1851 in Waukegan, Illinois. She came to the Pacific Northwest in 1869, settling in Olympia with her parents after first visiting Seattle. As the daughter of the first governor of Washington, Elisha P. Ferry, she was one of the city's best-known women of the time. She met three presidents, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes, helping to entertain President Haynes in the executive mansion in Olympia as a small girl. President Lincoln called on her family's home in Waukegan, and her parents even named her brother Abraham Lincoln Ferry due to their friendship with Lincoln.

She married John Leary, a prominent citizen and capitalist of Seattle, on April 21, 1891 in Olympia. The couple lived at Mr. Leary's home in Seattle. Mr. Leary was one of the builders of Seattle, as well as an early mayor of the city. Through her familial connections and her own dynamic personality, Eliza was acquainted with many famous leaders of the West and the nation. She died in 1935 from injuries sustained after breaking her hip in her home.