Wakamatsu, California

[JLBadgley]

http://www.directcon.net/pharmer/Wakamatsu/Wakamatsu.html

I know I've seen reference to this before, but I thought others might find it interesting. It is about the group from Aizu-Wakamatsu that apparently fled the Bakumatsu and formed a colony in California.

-Josh

[Tornadoes28]

Very interesting story. I had no idea that colonists fleeing from Aizu had migrated to California. This story reminds me of the book Remembering Aizu: the testament of Shiba Goro which also detailed the hardships of the Aizu people following the Meiji Restoration. Thanks for the link.

Jon.
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[onnamusha]

Thanks, Josh, for that link; I enjoyed the pictures of the settlers too! Really nice stuff. I knew I had read an article about this some time ago, and I finally found it through the Knowledge Bank at osu.edu here: https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/1811/662/1/V8N2Sant.pdf It is an article from the journal Early Modern Japan by John Van Sant entitled "Lost in History: Aizu and the Meiji Restoration." It'll tell a little more about the colonists and their context in the history of Aizu in the Bakumatsu. I located Coloma, CA and Gold Hill on Google maps, kind of near Auburn, CA, home of famous obscure fantasy author Clark Ashton Smith. A bit of totally random, extremely off-topic trivia there...
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[Owarikenshi]

Thank you for this very interesting link.

Owarikenshi

[mktanaka]

Don Wakamatsu who grew up in Northern California may have father or ancestors from this settlement. After WWII internment of J-A, his father well could have settled in SF Bay area... not too far from the location of settlement. Don Wakamatsu played in Major Leagues.. (baseball) and was manager of the Seattle Mariners (at same time Ichiro Suzuki was on team) . Only J-A to be head coach/manager of major sports team in USA. (baseball, football, basketball, hockey)

[Hosokawa Gracia]

There were a brother and sister from Aizu-Wakamatsu living in New England right after the Meiji Restoration because they got scholarships from the Meiji government and joined the Iwakura Embassy (Mission) that went to the U.S.A. in 1872. Yamakawa Sutematsu and Yamakawa Kenjiro went from poverty to fame.

Kenjiro studied physics at Yale, returned to Tokyo, became the first Japanese physics professor at the University of Tokyo, and later became the President of the university.

Sutematsu (Stematz) was one of five girls who obtained scholarships, including Tsuda Umeko and Nagai Shige. She was the first Japanese woman to get a college degree and became a valedictorian at Vassar. Her American 'sister' was educator Alice Bacon. Stematz married Saigo's cousin, Oyama Iwao, and is known for her nursing, charity work and as an administer at Tsuda College.

Two other Yamakawas who were famous are hero Yamakawa Hiroshi and heroine Futabe who both fought for Aizu-Wakamatsu. Both of them also became educators.
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