Asa Shinn Mercer
Encyclopedia
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
and a member of the Washington State Senate
Washington State Legislature
The Washington State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a bipartisan, bicameral body, composed of the lower Washington House of Representatives, composed of 98 Representatives, and the upper Washington State Senate, with 49 Senators.The State Legislature...
.
He is remembered primarily for his role in three milestones of the old American West: the founding of the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
, the Mercer Girls
Mercer Girls
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 to balance the gender ratio...
, and the Johnson County War
Johnson County War
The Johnson County War, also known as the War on Powder River, was a range war which took place in April 1892 in Johnson County, Natrona County and Converse County in the U.S. state of Wyoming...
. Mercer Island in Lake Washington
Lake Washington
Lake Washington is a large freshwater lake adjacent to the city of Seattle. It is the largest lake in King County and the second largest in the state of Washington, after Lake Chelan. It is bordered by the cities of Seattle on the west, Bellevue and Kirkland on the east, Renton on the south and...
and Mercer Street in Seattle are named not for Asa, but rather his brother Thomas
Thomas Mercer
From An Illustrated History of the State of Washington, by Rev. H.K. Hines, D.D., The Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, IL. 1893 A portrait of Mr. Mercer appears between pages 588 and 589...
.
The University of Washington
In 1861, as a member of one of the founding families of Seattle, Washington, a young Asa Mercer assisted his brothers in clearing stumps to make way for the new territorial university. Once the building had been completed, Mercer, the only college graduate in town, was hired as the university's sole instructor and president.The Mercer Girls
The young town of Seattle was attracting hordes of men to work in the timber and fishing industries, but few marriageable women were willing to make the trip to the remote Northwest corner of the United States. In 1864, with public support and private funding, Mercer traveled to the Eastern United States in search of single women to work in Seattle as teachers and in other respectable occupations. This trip, and a subsequent trip in 1866, introduced dozens of women to the Pacific Northwest, most of whom eventually married local men. The descendants of the Mercer Girls still represent a significant portion of Seattle's citizenry. The Mercer Girls story formed the basis of the television show Here Come the BridesHere Come the Brides
Here Come the Brides is an American comedy Western series from Screen Gems that aired on the ABC television network from September 25, 1968 to April 3, 1970...
.
The Johnson County War
Mercer became well-known throughout the West as a publisher, and eventually found his way to Cheyenne, WyomingCheyenne, Wyoming
Cheyenne is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Wyoming and the county seat of Laramie County. It is the principal city of the Cheyenne, Wyoming, Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Laramie County. The population is 59,466 at the 2010 census. Cheyenne is the...
, where he published the Northwestern Livestock Journal, a public relations vehicle for the moneyed cattle interests. As Mercer came to see the clearly underhanded treatment of individual ranchers by the cartels, he began to write more scathing accounts of the events that were unfolding on the open range. His account is told in his book The Banditti of the Plains
The Banditti of the Plains
The Banditti of the Plains, Or the Cattlemen's Invasion of Wyoming in 1892 is a book written by Asa Shinn Mercer...
(1894), which was suppressed in its day, and is still difficult to find in public libraries in some parts of the Western U.S.
Following the events of the Johnson County War, which included destruction of his newspaper office by arson, Mercer settled in to the quiet life of a successful rancher in Hyattville, Wyoming, where he died in 1917.