Asa Shinn Mercer (June 6, 1839 - August 10, 1917) was the first president of the Territorial University of Washington and a member of the Washington State Senate. Events 1508 - Maximilian I Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in Friulia by Venetian forces; he is forced to sign a three-year Year 1839 ( MDCCCXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common Events 612 BC - Killing of Sinsharishkun, King of Assyrian Empire Year 1917 ( MCMXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year See Washington (disambiguation for other uses The University of Washington, founded in 1861, is a public research University The Washington State Legislature is the state legislature of the U
He is remembered primarily for his role in three milestones of the old American West: the founding of the University of Washington, the Mercer Girls, and the Johnson County War. See Washington (disambiguation for other uses The University of Washington, founded in 1861, is a public research University The Mercer Girls or Mercer Maids were an 1860s project of Asa Shinn Mercer, an American who lived in Seattle, who decided to "import" The Johnson County War also known as the War on Powder River or Wyoming Civil War, was a Range war which took place in Johnson County Wyoming Mercer Island in Lake Washington and Mercer Street in Seattle are named not for Asa, but rather his brother Thomas. Mercer Island is a city in King County, Washington, USA The population was 22036 at the 2000 census Lake Washington is the second largest natural Lake in state of Washington (after Lake Chelan) and the largest lake in King County. [1]
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The University of Washington
In 1861, as a member of one of the founding families in 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 Brides. Here Come the Brides is a television series 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, Wyoming, where he published the Northwestern Livestock Journal, a public relations vehicle for the moneyed cattle interests. Cheyenne ( /ʃaɪˈæn/ or /ʃaɪˈɛn/) is the capital of the U 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, which was suppressed in its day, and is still difficult to find in public libraries in some parts of the Western U.S. The Banditti of the Plains Or the Cattlemen's Invasion of Wyoming in 1892 (The Crowning Infamy of the Ages is a book written by Asa Shinn Mercer. The Western United States &mdashcommonly referred to as the American West or simply the West &mdashtraditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost
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 Buffalo, Wyoming, where he died in 1917. Buffalo is a city in Johnson County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 3900 at the 2000 census.
References
- ^ Warren, James (October 9, 2001), “Seattle at 150: Mercer brothers imprinted family name on the city”, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, <http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/42017_mercer09.shtml>
External links
- Minor, David. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (popularly known as "the P-I" is one of two daily Newspapers in Seattle Washington, United States. Handbook of Texas Online: Mercer, Asa Shinn. Retrieved on 2008-06-07. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 1099 - The First Crusade: The Siege of Jerusalem begins
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| Preceded by N/A (new position) | President of the University of Washington 1861–1863 | Succeeded by William Edward Barnard |
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