In 1838, the Missionary Board sent Elkanah Walker and his wife Mary to the Oregon Territory. Mary was an educated woman. She had a doctor's knowledge of medicine and was an experienced teacher. Mary and Elkanan were married in March 1838, and immediately left Maine for the Northwest. Another missionary couple, Reverend Cushing Eells and his wife Myra, accompanied the Walkers. These travelers would become lifelong friends.

The first stop in the Northwest was at the Whitman Mission in Waiilatpu. While at the mission, Mary gave birth to a son, Cyrus Hamlin Walker, the first white child to be born and live to maturity in the Northwest.

Once the Walkers and Eellses arrived in Spokane, the men had to build their own homes. These first homes were primitive and had dirt floors. The roofs slanted and were covered with thick grass laid over the rafters. In bad weather, chunks of sod would sometimes fall into the houses. The Walker and Eells's mission was named Tshimakain and was about 25 miles northwest of Spokane. The mission was open for approximately nine years.

Besides raising six children, Mary baked bread, tended garden, sewed clothing, churned butter, made cheese, and milked goats. She fed the many visitors who visited the missionary.

Mary was a curious person and particularly enjoyed visits from the scientists that came to the region looking at the various flora and fauna. Even with her busy life, she indulged her scientific curiosity by teaching herself taxidermy. She enjoyed preserving fish, birds, and animals by stuffing and mounting them. Her knowledge of the people and animals of the region impressed many of the Walker visitors.

The Whitman Massacre changed the life of Mary Walker for good. In the spring following the massacre, the Walker and Eells families moved to Fort Colville and eventually into the Willamette Valley where they lived until their deaths in 1897 and 1898.

Much has been written about the women who came to the Northwest at the urging of Asa Mercer, the president of the University of Washington in the 1860s. Mercer was a good salesman. Most of the women that he brought to the Pacific Northwest in 1864 were from Lowell, Massachusetts. He told the women that the Washington Territory was a fast growing region and the local towns needed women of good moral standing to teach the rapidly growing population of children. Also, he wanted to increase the number of marriageable women in the territory.

The Civil War was stripping New England of men and jobs. Lowell was a cotton-producing center, and little cotton was making its way north. Many women welcomed the prospect of finding a husband and having a job in the new Washington Territory.

The cost of the trip was $250, but only ten women had that kind of money to spend on such a trip. Mercer's travel plans were to leave New York City on a ship for Panama. The travelers would then journey across Panama by train. Another ship would take them to San Francisco and eventually Seattle.

Mercer's group of ten women and two men left New York in March 1864. The trip was difficult and filled with problems for Mercer. Time and time again, he spent his own money to take care of his charges. Weather caused the travelers to miss their ships or structural problems aboard the ships prohibited the accommodation of passengers. Despite these challenges, the weary travelers arrived in Seattle on the night of May 16, 1864. Although no one met the group on the dock and the travelers stayed the night at the only hotel in the city, the following day a reception was held in their honor at the University Hall.

Encouraged by the support he received, Mercer made a second trip two years later. Like the first trip, this trip was filled with problems and cost Mercer money. In January 1866, he and 34 unmarried women left New York and in May arrived in Seattle. Many of these ladies became the wives, mothers, and grandmothers of the families that helped to shape the Puget Sound region.