Washington territory: The great North-west, her material resources, and claims to emigration. A plain statement of things as they exist

Asa Mercer published his first work when he was twenty-five, as he was arranging for a second emigration party to the Pacific coast. He said later that copies of this work were distributed for free. Mercer served two sessions as the first president of Washington Territorial University. From Washington he moved to Oregon and then finally to Texas. With Washington Territory, Mercer gave a minute account of the territorial boundaries and described the geographical, topographical and sociological features of the region west of the Cascades including climate, agricultural resources, lumber, minerals, fish and fishing, whaling, grazing lands, manufacturing, the markets and trade, Indians, newspapers, schools, and towns. This is the first detailed account of the area after its establishment as a territory, with an appendix of elaborate tables of routes and distances to various mining regions of Idaho and Montana