<p>PH Coll 1512.1</p>
<p>Asa Shinn Mercer (1839-1918) was hired as the first instructor and was therefore the first president of the University of Washington in Seattle in 1864.   He was responsible for a plan to bring the Mercer Girls to Washington Territory in 1864 from Lowell, Massachusetts.  The young women were to work as teachers and served to increase the number of marriageable women in a Territory populated chiefly by young bachelors.  Asa Mercer married one of the "Mercer Girls," Annie E. Stephens, on July 15, 1866.

</p>
<div class="fn value">
Unknown author<span style="display: none;">Unknown author</span></div>
circa between 1850 and 1860 <div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1850-00-00T00:00:00Z/7,P1319,+1850-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1326,+1860-00-00T00:00:00Z/9</div>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://content.lib.washington.edu/portraitsweb/index.html">Portraits Collection</a>