Japan Through American Eyes: The Journal of Francis Hall, 1859-1866

480 Pages·2001·74.5 MB·English

by  Fred G Notehelfer

Japan
Through
American Eyes
The Journal of Francis Hall, 1859-1866
Francis Hal!
Japan
Through
American Eyes
The Journal of Francis Hall, 1859-1866
Edited, Annotated, and Abridged by
F. G. NOTEHELFER
From the Cleveland Public Library
John G. White Collection of Orientalia
Westview
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Copyright © 2001 by Westview Press, A Member of the Perseus Books Group
Published in 2001 in the United States of America by Westview Press, 5500 Central
Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, and in the United Kingdom by Westview Press, 12
Hid's Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ.
Find us on the World Wide Web at www.westviewpress.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hall, Francis.
Japan through American eyes : the journal of Francis Hall, 1859-1866 / edited,
annotated, and abridged by F, G. Notehelfer.
p. cm.
"From the Cleveland Public Library John G. White Collection of Orientalia."
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8133-3867-0
1. Japan—History—Restoration, 1853-1870. I. Notehelfer, F. G. II. Title.
DS881.3.H257 2001
952'.025-- dc21 2001023377
Text design by Tonya Hahn.
Set in 10.5-point Trump Mediaeval by Perseus Publishing Services.
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National
Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Preface ix
Francis Hall 1
1859 33
1860 61
1861 191
1862 263
1863 319
1864 365
1865 407
1866 423
Index 433
v
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List of Illustrations
FM. 1 Francis Hall ii
1.1 fames Curtis Hepburn 34
1.2 Detail from Sadahide woodcut of
the Port of Yokohama, 1860 37
1.3 Missionaries Verbeck, Brown, and Simmons 39
1.4 Plan of Yokohama, 1865 44
1.5 Winnowing 46
1.6 Detail of Sadahide's Yokohama, 1860 49
2.1 Eugene Van Reed 63
2.2 Kanagawa, on the Tokaido 65
2.3 Scene on the Tokaido near Kanagawa 69
2.4 Aerial view of cliff above the Tokaido in Kanagawa 85
2.5 Jobutsuji temple in Kanagawa 103
2.6 Farmhouses along the Tokaido 109
2.7 Hall's Yokohama house 157
2.8 Zempukuji: Quarters of the American legation, Edo 159
2.9 The Lord of Arima's compound, Edo 161
2.10 Teahouses at Oji 165
3.1 Japanese fire brigade 195
3.2 Hachiman shrine in Kamakura 211
3.3 George R. Hall 240
3.4 Teahouses in Yokohama 243
3.5 Kamakura Daibutsu 255
4.1 Walsh & Co. building, Yokohama, 1861 265
4.2 Yokohama girl 277
4.3 Map of Yokohama and environs, 1865 281
4.4 Edo Castle 292
vii
4,5 Village of Namamugi 305
5.1 The Yokohama Bund 327
5.2 Satsuma samurai in Yokohama 355
6,1 Near Kamakura, site of Baldwin-Bird murders 400
8.1 Road to Miangaze, near Eiyama 426
8.2 Sadahide's Yokohama, 1866 431
viii Francis Hall
Preface
The journal excerpted in this volume is extraordinary: It is not often
that a major historical work comes to light after a hundred years of
quiescence. Nor is it generally the case that the author of such a
work is completely unknown and forgotten. And yet, if you had
asked me fifteen years ago whether I had ever heard of Francis Hall
or his journal, I would have answered decidedly in the negative. I
doubt, moreover, that any of my colleagues in the field of nine-
teenth-century Japanese studies—here or in Japan—had heard of him
either. And yet, Francis Hall, as the biographical essay that accompa-
nies this study indicates, was far from unknown. America's leading
business pioneer in Japan, a correspondent for Horace Greeley's New
York Tribune, a world traveler and opinion maker, "Japanese Frank
Hall," as he was later hailed in his hometown, was hardly a nobody.
Nor were his talents unrecognized in their day. In 1866 J. C. Hep-
burn, the leading missionary-scholar of his generation, paid him the
ultimate compliment when he wrote home that Hall was not only a
"very intelligent" and "agreeable" person, but "as well versed in
Japanese matters as any man living."1
It is my hope that with this publication Hall's journal will take its
place alongside the writings of Townsend Harris, Henry Heusken,
Joseph Heco, Ernest Satow, and others active in late Tokugawa
Japan, as a major source of information on the treaty port and on life
in Japan on the eve of the Meiji Restoration.
Hall's work was first brought to my attention in the spring of 1985
by Margaret Case, assistant director at Princeton University Press,
and by Alice N. Loranth, head of the Fine Arts and Special Collec-
tions Department of the Cleveland Public Library. The Hall
manuscript had come into the Cleveland Public Library's John G.
White Collection of Orientalia through the efforts of Loranth, who
encouraged its purchase in 1983. She was convinced that the
manuscript merited publication, and to that end she sent it to
ix