Editing Asa Mercer (section)

==The Mercer Girls==
{{main article|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 March 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. On May 16, 1864, he returned to Seattle with eleven women who all found employment as teachers in Seattle. Of these, eight eventually married and settled in the area.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fernandez Greene |first1=Vanessa |title=Mercer's Belles and Sarmiento's Teachers: Female Pedagogues within Two Transcontinental Emigration Projects of the Nineteenth Century |journal=History of Education Quarterly |date=February 2022 |volume=62 |issue=1 |pages=38–60 |doi=10.1017/heq2021.57}}</ref>  This and a subsequent trip 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]]''. Mercer himself married one of the Mercer Girls.<ref name=ws/>