Throughout 2021 the Sunday Olympian’s Looking Back feature portrayed events and people from the Sylvester’s Window cityscape project. The 1874 cityscape includes Anna Conner Hartsuck, a so-called “Mercer Girl,” brought to the Pacific Northwest in the 1860s to remedy a deficit of eligible brides. The Mercer Girls story inspired the TV series “Here Come the Brides.” Anna married Mark Hartsuck and was a prominent member of Olympia society.
Rogers Studio photo, about 1890, courtesy State Capital Museum Collection, Washington State Historical Society, catalog C1943.1014.20
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2021