Hearts West (5 page)

The ship arrived in San Francisco Bay on April 24, 1866. Some of the passengers, apparently daunted by dismal descriptions of the Pacific Northwest, decided to stay in sunny California. Obligated to pay the fare to Seattle for his remaining passengers, but with only a few dollars in his pocket, Asa sent an urgent request for money to the governor. He later recalled:

I spent $2.50 sending him a telegram: “Arrived here broke. Send $2,000 quick to get party to Seattle.” The next day I received a notice from the telegraph office to call, pay $7.50 and receive a dispatch waiting for me. Having but 50 cents, I could not buy the message.

He went to the telegraph office, explained his penniless state to the superintendent, and suggested the man open the dispatch to see if it contained an order for money, which would allow him to pay. “He opened the envelope and read, then burst into a hearty laugh, and passed the message to me. It was made up of over 100 words of congratulation, but never a word about money.”

Thirty-six passengers left the ship and stayed in California, but the rest took passage on various ships heading to Seattle, where, according to Flora Pearson:

Seattle housewives received them with open arms and vied with one another in entertaining the newcomers in their humble homes. And the men, well, they would fain open their arms also had they dared to do so. As it was, there was “standing room only” at some of the windows.

The Mercer Maids, as they came to be called, found husbands and jobs in Washington, Oregon, and California. Only a few returned to the eastern seaboard.

Asa, with his Irish bride behind him, embarked on a series of promotional and career adventures that sent them from place to place all over the West. He authored a forty-page pamphlet,
The Washington Territory: The Great Northwest, Her Material Resources and Claims to Emigration
, which was the first of many tracts promoting the Northwest. Relocating to Oregon, he became a customs collector in Astoria, where he was accused of smuggling. The matter was eventually discharged following unsuccessful attempts to prosecute the case. He then became involved in shipping and real estate. It was in Oregon that he again displayed his knack for promotion and began writing for newspapers.

By the 1880s Asa, Annie, and their children were living in Texas, where he founded and edited several publications. Moving to Wyoming, he started the
Northwestern Livestock Journal
and was involved with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.

Annie died in 1900. She had given birth to eight children, three of whom died in infancy and one as a teenager. She had followed her husband from place to place, never complaining publicly about his enthusiastic promotions and the failures and public criticism that seemed to follow almost everything he did. Asa died at his home in the Big Horn Mountains in 1917. Though his schemes and dreams may have been bigger than the means to properly carry them out, his activities add a richly colored thread to the tapestry of western history.

MATRIMONIAL NEWS

I
n the early days of westward travel, when men and women left behind their homes and acquaintances in search of wealth and happiness, there was a recognized need for some method of honorable introduction between the sexes. This need was readily fulfilled by the formation of a periodical devoted entirely to the advancement of marriage. Throughout the 1870s, '80s and '90s, that periodical, to which many unattached men and women subscribed, was a newspaper called
Matrimonial News
. The paper was printed in San Francisco, California, and Kansas City, Missouri. It was issued once a week and the paper's editors proclaimed that the intent of the material was the happiness of its readers.

According to the
Matrimonial News
business manager, Stark Taylor, the paper would “bring letters from a special someone to desiring subscribers in hopes that a match would be made and the pair would spend the rest of their life together.”

Fair and gentle reader, can we be useful to you? Are you a stranger desiring a helpmate or searching for agreeable company that may in the end ripen into closer ties? If so, send us a few lines making known your desires. Are you bashful and dread publicity? Be not afraid. You need not disclose to us your identity. Send along your correspondence accompanied by five cents for every seven words, and we will publish it under an alias and bring about correspondence in the most delicate fashion. To cultivate the noble aim of life and help men and women into a state of bliss is our aim.

A code of rules and regulations, posted in each edition of the paper, was strictly enforced. All advertisers were required to provide information on their personal appearance, height, weight, and their financial and social positions, along with a general description of the kind of persons with whom they desired correspondence. Gentlemen's personals of forty words or under were published once for twenty-five cents in stamps or postage. Ladies' personals of forty words or under were published free of charge. Any advertisements over forty words, whether for ladies or gentlemen, were charged a rate of one cent for each word.

The personal ads were numbered, to avoid publishing names and addresses. Replies to personals were to be sent to the
Matrimonial News
office sealed in an envelope with the number of the ad on the outside.

Every edition of the
Matrimonial News
began with the same positive affirmation: “Women need a man's strong arm to support her in life's struggle, and men need a woman's love.”

The following are a sample of advertisements that appeared in the January 8, 1887, edition of the Kansas City printing of
Matrimonial News.

283 -
A gentleman of 25 years old, 5 feet 3 inches, doing a good business in the city, desires the acquaintance of a young, intelligent and refined lady possessed of some means, of a loving disposition from 18 to 23, and one who could make home a paradise.

287 -
An intelligent young fellow of 22 years, 6 feet height, weight 170 pounds. Would like to correspond with a lady from 18 to 22. Will exchange photos: object, fun and amusement, and perhaps when acquainted, if suitable, matrimony.

282 -
A few lady correspondents wanted by a bashful man of 36, of fair complexion. 5 feet 5 inches tall, weight 130 pounds. Would prefer a brunette of fair form about five feet, between 18 and 25 years of age. Object, improvement, and if suited, matrimony.

278 -
Wanted to correspond with a young lady matrimonially inclined who would make a young man a good wife: am of good standing and good family, strictly temperate, a professional man and will make a kind husband.