Stories

Nagasaki Post Office and Telegraph Bureau

In 1884, the Nagasaki Post Office, located previously in the Japanese town, was moved to a Western-style brick building at No.1 Umegasaki, beside the office of the Great Northern Telegraph Company, a Danish company that had laid Japan's first international underwater telegraph cables in 1871. This location made it easy to cooperate with the Great Northern Telegraph Co. and to enjoy the convenience of proximity to Nagasaki Harbor.

Two years later the post office absorbed the Nagasaki Telegraph Bureau and became the Nagasaki Port Office and Telegraph Bureau, Japan's first government facility combining the two functions. The building was torn down in 1918 and replaced with a modern post office building on the same lot. This served as the hub of Nagasaki's postal service until being moved to the present building in Ebisu-machi in 1970 and renamed "Nagasaki Central Post Office." Nothing remains of either building today, and the reclamation of land from the harbor has completely erased the former waterfront.

Great Northern Telegraph Company

In 1868, the Russian government invited tenders for a contract to lay cables connecting Russia with China, Japan and Hong Kong. The Great Northern Telegraph Company of Denmark won the contract and set up a subsidiary firm, the Great Northern China and Japan Extension Company, to carry out the work.

In Japan, the Meiji Government guaranteed access to Nagasaki and allowed the company to manage the cables between Japan and the continent. The Great Northern China and Japan Extension Company laid cables from Vladivostok to Nagasaki, Shanghai and Hong Kong, a distance of 2,300 nautical miles, and established a station in the Belle Vue Hotel at No. 11 Minamiyamate. This hotel was Nagasaki's best accommodation at the time, an imposing two-storey structure designed in a square shape around an inner courtyard and standing at the tree-clad foot of the Minamiyamate hillside, near the customs jetty where foreign visitors came ashore.

Japan's first overseas telegraph service began on August 12, 1871 with a notice In the Nagasaki Express telling readers that the company was "prepared to forward telegrams from the station at this port to all parts of the world in telegraphic communication."

In 1874, the Great Northern Telegraph Company established its Nagasaki headquarters in a new Western-style building at No.2 Umegasaki and became one of the pillars of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement, while at the same time clutching the aortic artery of international telecommunications in Japan. When the clouds of war darkened Nagasaki in the 1930's, the company still enjoyed the rights to the underwater telegraph cables and also held perpetual leases to a number of choice lots in the former settlement including the main office at No.2 Umegasaki, next door to the Nagasaki Post Office. The Japanese government had tried several times over the years to buy out the company's operations and to gain control of the cables, but these attempts had invariably failed. As international tensions came to a head in 1940, the company finally acquiesced and transferred its rights and property to the Japanese government. Japanese authorities took control of the Nagasaki facilities on June 1, 1940, snipping the last thread of privileges enjoyed by foreigners under the umbrella of extraterritoriality.

German Consulate

During the first two decades after the opening of the port of Nagasaki, "merchant consuls" filled the role of German consul, handling communication with Japanese officials and looking after the interests of German residents and visitors on a part-time basis. In 1865, the German merchant Louis Kniffler accepted the position of acting consul for the first time and orchestrated diplomatic affairs from his office at No.4 Dejima. Over the following years, the responsibility passed to other German merchants including Richard Lindau (1866-1868), G.A. Schottler (1869-1870), Max Militzer (1870-1873), George Westphal (1872-1873), and Hermann Iwersen (1874 and 1877-1889).

In January 1889, a time when an increasing number of German ships were visiting Nagasaki and Germany was increasing its commercial and military presence in East Asia, F.G. Muller-Beeck became the first German Foreign Service officer appointed consul at Nagasaki. Muller-Beeck took a keen interest in the history and culture of Nagasaki and published several papers on the subject, including a widely read dissertation on the "Shokunin Zukushi," a series of relief carvings depicting various Edo Period occupations installed along the wall of the main hall at Matsunomori Shinto Shirine. In April 1900, he moved the German consulate into the Western-style wooden building on the waterfront at No.11 Ōura, built originally by Textor & Co. and used for many years by the famous British firm Jardine, Matheson & Co. Juris G. Specks replaced Muller-Beeck as consul in 1907 and remained in office for two years. Specks was followed by A. Mudra (1909), K. Mechlenburg (1910-1911) and E. Orht (1911-1913). Juris G. Specks returned to the post of German consul in Nagasaki for a second time in April 1913. On January 27 the following year, he hosted a reception at the consulate to celebrate the birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm II. This event was attended by the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture, the mayor of Nagasaki City, and many other prominent Japanese and foreign residents. But it was destined to be the last. Specks and his family and staff left Nagasaki after the outbreak of World War I in the summer of that year, and the Nagasaki German Consulate was never re-opened.

Beth Israel Synagogue

On September 3, 1896, the Beth Israel Synagogue was dedicated at No.11 Umegasaki. The two most important figures in the construction of the two-story red brick building were the Jewish merchants Haskel Goldenberg and Sigmund Lessner. Leb Lessner, Sigmund's father, was appointed gabay (administrator) of the new synagogue.

The following is a list of some of the events that took place at the synagogue in the first decade of the 20th century. In March 1901, Joseph Samuel (American) married Regina Smith (Austrian). The ceremony was performed by Wax Lewis Lifschitz. In May of the same year, Edward Kohen (American) married Jennie Gertrude Fleck (Russian). The ceremony was performed by Leb Lessner. Bella Goldenberg of Nagasaki, married James Oxberry of Hong Kong in July 1902. In February 1903, there was a service at the synagogue for Lewis "Joe" Moore, a Jewish merchant who had died earlier in Shanghai. In November 1904, there was a funeral service for A.S. Newman, a Jewish physician who had practiced in Nagasaki before moving to Moji in 1901. His remains were brought to Nagasaki for burial in the Jewish cemetery. The funeral was conducted by J. Serper. Finally, in January, 1909, a memorial service was held for Marcus Mess, a former Nagasaki merchant who had passed away in St. Petersburg.

The synagogue at Umegasaki continued to operate during World War I, as can be seen in an ad for Yom Kippur services carried by the English language newspaper in September 1918. After the death of Sigmund Lessner in 1920 and his wife Sophie three years later, very few Jewish people remained in Nagasaki. Some ex-residents living in Shanghai decided to empower the Shanghai Zionist Association and the Oihel Moishe Synagogue to dispose of the Beth Israel Synagogue in Nagasaki. Acting upon instructions from these groups, the Japanese government auctioned the property and building and sent a cheque for $2,618 to N.E.B. Ezra of the Zionist Association in Shanghai. In September 1924, the Nagasaki synagogue was sold to the Japanese government by the Shanghai Zionist Association. The old building was used thereafter as a warehouse and remained with its distinctive pear-shaped window awnings intact until being torn down in the 1960s. Today the site is occupied by a cluster of modern buildings that gives little indication of Japan's first synagogue or the life and times of Nagasaki's former Jewish community.

Municipal Council

On April 21, 1861, a meeting of the Land Renters in Nagasaki was held. George Morrison, British Consul, was named chair. The meeting's main purpose was to select a Municipal Council to supervise the administrative affairs of the foreign settlement. Those residents with rents of $50-$100 got one vote, those with rents of $100-$150 got two votes, those with rents of $150-$200 got three votes, and those with rents above $200 got four votes. William Alt , John Major and Frankin Field were elected to seats on the Council. The Council submitted its first report three weeks later. In May 1862, the Council was said to be doing poorly because it had tried to do too much too soon. The Council languished for a time, before it was reestablished in 1872. In August of that year, an election of a new Municipal Council was held. D.D. Inglis (chair), Carl Rasch, H.A.Howe, Jr., Frederick Hellyer and Charles Hay were elected to seats on the Council and William Jalland was elected secretary. At that time, the Land Renters, headed by Glover & Ringer, wanted the new Municipal Council to take over some of the duties that had been held by the Consuls.

The following month, the land renters of Dejima moved to withdraw from the Municipal Council because of the lack of representation, but the motion was denied. The meetings of the Municipal Council were usually held at No. 4 Ōura, but in 1875 it was held at Ōura No. 10. In May 1876, the Tentative Committee of the Municipal Council resigned — meaning in practical terms that there was no Council. There continued to be a debate as to the necessity of a Municipal Council, but it never again became an important administrative factor in the foreign settlement.

Nagasaki Club

As early as the summer of 1861, a social organization called the Nagasaki Club had been formed by members (primarily British) of the foreign settlement. By January 1862, rules for the Club had been settled and by the end of the year, a permanent building for the Club had been erected at No. 31 Ōura. The original trustees were W.J. Alt and H.M. Wright. In May 1863, Edward Harrison replaced Alt as trustee of the Nagasaki Club. By July 1878, John Carrick Smith was the Club's trustee. Rumors circulated in the spring of 1881 that the club would soon close, and, indeed, the building and its bowling alleys were sold at auction in June.

The Nagasaki Club reopened on November 1, 1881 in a new two-story building at No. 10 Ōura under the supervision of Charles Sutton. The biblical room was said to be the Club's main attraction. The Nagasaki Club was primarily a place for European and American residents of Nagasaki to meet and relax. Occasional dances were held at the Club, especially on holidays and the departures of important residents. In August 1921 a celebration was held marking the 40th anniversary of the Nagasaki Club at its No. 10 Ōura site. Stewards and secretary-treasurers over the years included R.M.P. Austin, Robert Bowie, William Devine, Edward Duus, H.H. Hawkins, James Jones, Samuel Officer, W.H. Price, M. Smith, Frederick Stone and Arthur Tower. In 1933 the club moved to No. 4 Minamiyamate, where it remained until its closure in 1941.

Sacred Hearts Girls School [Seishin Jo Gakkō]

Answering a plea from the French missionary Bernard Petitjean for a contingent of sisters to come work in Japan, five French women from the Soeurs de l'Enfant Jesus, under the leadership of Sister Mathilde, traveled from Malaysia, where they had been working, to Yokohama, arriving on June 28, 1872. The first group of French sisters to reach Nagasaki arrived on July 6, 1877. In 1880, they opened a school called Seishin Jo Gakkō (Sacred Heart Girls School) at Minamiyamate. By 1886, the school had been transferred to No. 5 Ōura, where it remained until 1899. From 1900 to 1941, it was located at No. 16 Minamiyamate. Seishin Jo Gakkō merged with Josei Jo Gakkō at Uenomachi in 1941.

Italian Consulate

Italian interests in Nagasaki were, surprisingly, never handled by an Italian, although there were a number of Italian residents in town over the years. The first time that the Italian flag flew over Nagasaki was in 1870 when William F. Gaymans, a Swiss under French protection, became Italian Consul. His offices were at No. 9 Ōura along the Bund. Gaymans was followed by Julius Adrian, Prussian, who took over in 1872. The Italian flag flew over his residence at No. 4 Higashi Yamate. After this, other Western consuls in Nagasaki took charge of Italian affairs. In 1874 it was the Dutch Consul, from 1875 to 1892 and 1916 to 1924 it was the Russian Consul, from 1893 to 1915 it was the German Consul, and from 1925 to 1939 Italian interests were managed by the British Consul.

China & Japan Trading Co.

On October 1, 1869, No. 4 Ōura was transferred to an American firm operating out of New York called the China & Japan Trading Co. It advertized itself as shipchandlers, general shopkeepers, commission agents, and auctioneers, with offices at Nagasaki, Kobe, Osaka and Shanghai. Early merchants attached to the firm included the Americans John F. Twembly, I. M. Beauchamp and W. M. Robinet. Even though it was an American company, the two most important people associated with it were British: Edward Rogers and Frederick Stone. The company's Nagasaki headquarters remained at No. 4 Ōura until at least September 1915, making it one of the most important and longest-operating American businesses in town.

Medical Hall

By 1867, James Gye was running a pharmacy called the Medical Hall at No. 12 Ōura. Gye and family left town in mid-April 1870 after a March fire destroyed most of his goods. He was assisted financially by residents of the settlement. After Gye's departure, the Medical Hall was taken over by the British pharmacist A.C. Sin. Sin stayed only briefly in Nagasaki, however, before moving his business operations to Yokohama. On September 1, 1871, the American William Jalland, who until a month earlier had been running a competitive business called the Medicine Hall, bought the Medical Hall from Sin. Jalland operated the pharmacy for almost four years before selling it in April 1879 to William Hooper. At some point, Hooper moved his business, which he now called the Medical Hall and Aerated Water Manufactory, to the rear of Ōura No. 11 facing Main Street. Hooper operated the pharmacy until his death in April 1895. The following month, William H. Evans took over the Medical Hall. Soon after, Evans moved the pharmacy to No. 42 Ōura, where it remained until being sold at auction in September 1904.

Masonic Lodge

The consecration of Nagasaki Lodge No. 710, S.C. and the institution of officers took place at the Masonic Hall, No. 50 Ōura, on October 5, 1885. This marked the beginning of the Masonic Lodge in Nagasaki. Most of the original members were Britons employed by the Mitsubishi Co. to supervise operations at the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, leased to the company in 1884 (and purchased in 1887). The original listing of officers for the lodge was entirely British. On June 8, 1887, a new Masonic Hall opened at No. 47 Ōura, above the offices of Arthur Norman, the editor of The Rising Sun & Nagasaki Express and an enthusiastic Freemason. While most of its members were British, John Birch, the U.S. Consul, and M.A. Ginsburg, a Russian Jewish merchant, were both members. The Nagasaki Masonic Lodge was declared dormant in 1919 due to the departure of members from this port. The building at No.47 Ōura was demolished after World War II, but the stone gatepost bearing the compass-and-ruler Freemason's insignia was moved to Glover Garden, where it can still be seen today (inviting the mistaken impression that Thomas Glover and/or Frederick Ringer were Freemasons).

The Rising Sun & Nagasaki Express

At the end of May 1874, Filomeno Braga, the Portuguese editor of The Nagasaki Express, sold his printing office to the rival Rising Sun. The two newspapers combined and as of June began operation as The Rising Sun & Nagasaki Express. The new newspaper, which came out every Saturday, was originally operated by a small contingent of missionaries from the Australian Baptist Mission. Its owner was Wilton Hack and its editor Alfred J. Clode. A third member of the mission, John Dent Clark, also worked at the newspaper office at No. 13 Ōura.

In March 1876, Clode resigned as editor of the Rising Sun & Nagasaki Express in order to move to Yokohama and to start the Japan Photo Nightly Review. Arthur Norman replaced him. The Australians severed their connections with the newspaper in January 1877 when Hack sold it to Charles Sutton, a British merchant living in Nagasaki. At the end of the year, the newspaper switched from a Saturday to a Wednesday publication.

At the beginning of June 1879, the Rising Sun & Nagasaki Express moved to No.47 Sagarimatsu, where it thrived for years under the leadership of Sutton and Norman. In May 1894, Norman took over sole ownership of the newspaper when Sutton died. The work proved very taxing on Norman, who in July 1895 took a four-month break from the newspaper and went to Kobe in an attempt to recover his health. The job became even more exhausting during his absence, however, as in September the Rising Sun & Nagasaki Express also began to publish a daily newspaper (except Wednesday and Sunday) called the Nagasaki Shipping List.

Norman resumed his duties, but after a little more than a year back on the job, he gave up the position of editor to E.A. Morphy in November 1896. The experiment failed, however, and a month later Norman was again editing the newspaper. The job ultimately proved too much for Norman and by April of the following year, he was facing an insanity hearing in the British Consulate in Nagasaki. Arthur Norman was judged insane by the consular court and sent to a sanatarium in Hong Kong where he later died.

At the end of June 1897, there was an announcement of a takeover of the Rising Sun & Nagasaki Express and the Nagasaki Shipping List by Frederick Ringer and his new venture, the Nagasaki Press, which was scheduled to begin operation on July 1. This did not occur until September 1 because of a delay in the installation of equipment, but finally the 23-year-long career of the Rising Sun & Nagasaki Express came to an end.

Sailors' Institute

In 1879 Walter Andrews of the Anglican Episcopal Church in 1879 rented a building at No. 15 Ōura and began a "Reading and Coffee Room" for sailors. Andrews operated the institution until May 1882, when the newly-arrived A.B. Hutchinson of the same church took over. The first thing Hutchinson did was purchase the building Andrews had been using and repair it. He called his new establishment the "Sailors' Institute." In addition to being used for the relaxation of sailors, "social gatherings for tea and recreation [were] held and meetings for divine worship on several Sunday afternoons, by special request." The "Sailors' Institute" functioned in this manner until the end of June 1889, when Rev. Hutchinson left town to take up missionary work in Fukuoka. The insitutions begun by Andrews and Hutchinson were the forerunners of the Seamen's Home later established at No. 26 Ōura.

The Nagasaki Press

The final English-language newspaper published in Nagasaki hit the streets in September 1897. The Nagasaki Press was financed by Frederick Ringer of Holme Ringer & Co. The daily newspaper, edited in succession by the Englishmen H.O. Palmer, Willmott Lewis and E.R.S. Pardon, was sold to a Japanese firm in 1917 but ran uninterrupted until July 31, 1928 — a total of more than 30 years and 9,118 issues. Publication was suspended due to world-wide economic problems and the dwindling foreign population in Nagasaki.

Public Hall and Theater

In the opening decade of the Nagasaki foreign settlement, residents established a public facility where local and visiting talent could entertain the community. By 1869, a local acting troupe, the Nagasaki Amateur Dramatic Corps, was performing at the Olympic Theatre. In the mid-1870s, a Public Hall and Theatre was erected at No. 31 Ōura, but by January 1877 a special meeting had to be called to pay off the debt of the new building. In March, the Yoso no Shito Dramatic Club performed there and the following month the Dramatic Club of the HMS Audacious took the stage. Because of continued financial difficulties, however, the Public Hall and Theatre had to be auctioned off in April 1878.

One of the means used to resurrect the facility was to hold different events there and use the proceeds to support the Public Hall Fund. One example of this was a series of Smoking Concerts in 1889 that were open to members of the Nagasaki Club, the Bowling Club, and the Ladies Lawn Tennis Club. In July 1904, there was an appeal for funds to repair the Public Hall.

Over the years, a wide variety of people and events graced the stage of the Public Hall, including Madame Cora, Lady Illusionist; Annie May Abbott, the Little Electric Magnet; a minstrel show performed by the crew of the U.S. cruiser New Orleans; a joint entertainment effort of the local dramatic group known as the "Players" and the orchestra from the Italian cruiser Marco Polo; a performance of the Russian String Quartet; and a variety of dances held for the crews of visiting warships.

In spite of its own finacial difficulties, the Public Hall also hosted a number of benefit concerts for various causes. In February 1905, members of "B" Co., 9th US Infantry performed with proceeds going to the fund for Japanese sick and wounded in the Russo-Japanese War. The following February, a benefit was held for famine relief victims in northeastern Japan. Benefits for the Seamen's Home were held in 1908, 1914 and 1917.

Annual meetings of the Public Hall were held in January or February to asses its situation. Financial problems grew so great in 1917 that the trustees of the Public Hall tried to sell the building to the Episcopal Church at the Annual Meeting, but popular opposition prevented them from doing so. Finally, the economic situation proved so dire that in December 1923 the trustees decided to sell the land to Nagasaki Kyokai. This proved to be the death knell for the Public Hall, as the building was torn down and a new church erected on the site in October 1925.

Russian Volunteer Fleet

The Russian Volunteer Fleet was created in 1878 at the behest of Tsar Alexander III. He called for private donations to create a "Patriotic Squadron" to destroy the British mercantile fleet if war occurred between Russia and Britain over Afghanistan. By 1890 there were only seven ships in the fleet, but this figure had grown to 15 by 1900. The fleet made service runs between Nagasaki, Shanghai, Vladivostok and Odessa. Like the Russian East Asian Fleet, it spent the winter in the ice-free port of Nagasaki. An agency for the fleet was established in Nagasaki at No. 47 Ōura by Nicholas Gray in 1897. In December 1902, Gray transferred the agency to M. Ginsburg & Co. In 1904, there were 13 ships in the fleet, all of which had been built in Britain. When the Russo-Japanese War began, the transports of the Russian Volunteer Fleet were drafted into war service. By early 1906, with the war concluded, the fleet was back in Nagasaki. The fleet's agent in the city was still M. Ginsburg & Co. of No. 50 Ōura, but Ginsburg himself did not return to Nagasaki after the war. Ginsburg & Co. closed its Nagasaki office in March 1909, but the agency for the Russian Volunteer Fleet remained at No. 50 Ōura, where it was managed by N.P. Azbeleff. After the Russian Revolution, there was a protracted argument between the new Soviet leaders and the White Russians of Siberia as to who should control the fleet.

Eventually the Soviets took control and the name was changed to "Russian Mercantile Fleet. In early 1926, after the fleet stopped calling here, the Nagasaki City Chamber of Commerce made an unsuccessful effort to have the Russians steamers return to the port.

Chinese Consulate

On December 1, 1877, the first Chinese Consulate opened in Nagasaki at No. 1 Ōura. It remained at the site until August of the following year when it moved to No. 7 Ōura. The Chinese Consul U [Yeu] Tsing conducted a flag-raising ceremony at the consulate on September 12, 1878. U was followed as Chinese Consul by Tsai Hsien (1884-1887) and Yang Shoo (1887-1891). In October 1888, Yang moved the consulate to No. 2 Ōura, where it remained until the mid-1930s.

In 1891, T.W. Chang became Chinese Consul. He went back to China in 1894 because of the Sino-Japanese War, but returned to Nagasaki on November 23, 1896. Chang served until 1901, when he was replaced by Chu Tsung-ching (1901-1903). Chang was followed by Pen Poo-chen [Bien Pu Cheong] (1903-1907), Chang Hang (1907-1908), Wong Shi-yuen (1908-1910), Shu Wen-yong (1910-1912), Shu Shan Ching (1912-1914), Hu Jen Tai [Hu Ying Tai] (1914-1917), Foong Mien [Foong Mein] (1917-1921), Ko Tso-chi [Kuo or Kuoh] (1921-1930), and Chang Tsi (1930-1935?). From 1936 to 1939, there was a Chinese Consulate, but no consul serving in Nagasaki.

French Consulate

From July 1859 to November 1862, three European merchants, none of them French, served as Acting Consuls for the French government in Nagasaki. The first was Kenneth R. Mackenzie, a British merchant who was the local representative of Jardine, Matheson & Co. He served in this capacity from the opening of the foreign settlement to June 1861. The French flag flew over the rented Japanese house near Myōgyōji Temple that Mackenzie used as his private residence. William F. Gaymans, a Swiss merchant under French protection, took over briefly in 1861 before being replaced by Portuguese merchant Jose Loureiro. Loureiro remained in the position until November 1862.

On November 21, 1862, Leon Dury was appointed French Vice-Consul in Nagasaki. Dury was a French physician who had been brought to Japan by a missionary friend to open a hospital in Hakodate. He later found work as the French Vice-Consul in Yokohama before coming to Nagasaki. From April 1864, Dury ran French government affairs out of his office at No. 42C Ōura and later at No. 7 Minamiyamate. In June 1870, he left to become a French language teacher in Kyoto.

Dury was succeeded by M. Rousset, who came down from Yokohama. Soon afterward, the French Consulate was closed because of war with Prussia. It did not reopen until April 1886, with E. Frandon as vice-consul heading operations at No. 12 Ōura. In April 1891, F. Steenackers took over as vice-consul and moved the French Consulate to No. 13 Ōura. In 1903, the consulate was moved to No. 3 Higashiyamate, where Gustave Gaudareau was in charge. The French Consulate closed once again in May 1908. First the British Consulate, and then, from July 1909 to 1919, the Russian Consulate was placed in charge of French interests in Nagasaki.

Between the two world wars, French government interests in Nagasaki were conducted by the resident French merchants Jules Vachier, F. Charbonnel and Andre Boucly. For most of the period, affairs were managed by Vachier, a commercial agent who came to Nagasaki in 1907. Vachier settled at No. 42C Ōura at about the time he became acting French consul in 1920. He served in this capacity until his death from chronic uremia in July 1939.

Boucly ran French government affairs out of his house at No. 13A Higashiyamate until the outbreak of World War II.

U.S. Army Depot

In the three decades following the closing of the foreign settlement in Nagasaki, the United States Army operated depots in this western seaport town on two separate occasions — the first from 1899 to 1917 and the second from 1921 to 1933. Preparation for the establishment of a U.S. Army Depot in Nagasaki began in December 1899 with the arrival of Maj. John M. Hyde and Lt. Ellwood G. Babbit aboard a U.S. transport from Manila. The purpose of the depot was to provide food, clothing and equipment to American soldiers in the region. Its most important responsibility was to furnish coal for American transport ships carrying troops and supplies between the United States and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. Hyde as Quartermaster and Babbit as Clerk ran the depot out of the Nagasaki Hotel overlooking the harbor. It took a year and a half for the facility to become operational. The first task was to solicit bids for the supply of coal. In June 1901, the Japanese company Mitsui Bussan finally won the contract to provide bunker coal from its Miike mines at $3.30 per ton.

Joining Hyde and Babbit at the Army Depot in 1901 was S.R. De Souza (a former clerk and Interpreter with the U.S. consulate in Nagasaki) as Interpreter. The following year, the Americans accused Mitsui Bussan of fraud concerning the weighing and quality of the coal. As a result, in 1903 a Coal Inspector, John Anderson, was added. The position was maintained until November 1914. Although there were various personnel changes, these four officials — Quartermaster, Clerk, Interpreter and Coal Inspector — conducted the work of the depot for most of the initial period. Another item of note from this period was the depot's move from the Nagasaki Hotel to offices on the premises of Standard Oil of New York at No. 9 Ōura in 1907.

In July 1917 the U.S. Army Depot at Nagasaki shut down due to the shortage of personnel brought about by America's involvement in World War I. During its almost 18 years of operation, the depot employed ten Quartermasters, six clerks, two interpreters (one Portuguese and one Japanese), and four coal inspectors. In and of itself, the closing of the depot meant little to the residents of Nagasaki, but both the Japanese and American communities in town suffered considerable economic hardship due to the subsequent loss of revenue brought about by the cessation of regular visits of U.S. transports and their troops.

In August 1920, Edward Bell, the U.S. Secretary of War, petitioned the Japanese government for permission to re-establish the Army Depot in Nagasaki "for the purpose of conducting business connected with the calls at that port of American army transports…." In November, Japanese officials agreed to the request. The new Quartermaster, Maj. Rigby D. Valliant, and Clerk, Charles W. Brough, arrived in Nagasaki in July 1921, in order to prepare for the opening of the new U.S. Army Depot at the Nagasaki Hotel on October 1. Soon after their arrival, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce hosted a reception in their honor. The businessmen were worried by reports that the American transports would take on coal at Miike and bypass Nagasaki altogether. While their fears initially proved to be justified, by the following summer U.S. transports were once again making their way back to Nagasaki for re-coaling stops. Initially, in the second phase of the U.S. Army Depot's operation in Nagasaki, the quartermaster and clerk handled affairs at the office, but in 1927 the clerk was replaced by a warrant officer. Business was conducted out of the Nagasaki Hotel until 1929 when the depot was moved to the Sawayama Building at No. 11 Ōura. The Army Depot finally closed its doors permanently in 1933, in light of the change to oil-powered ships and increasingly difficult relations between Japan and the United States over Japanese policies in Manchuria. In all, the depot had been in operation for three decades and had brought thousands of American servicemen to the Japanese port town.

U.S. Naval Depot

The United States Navy twice operated naval depots in Nagasaki. The depots were used to purchase supplies for the American ships and sailors when in port and to pay the seamen wages due them. The first U.S. Naval Depot was in operation in Nagasaki by 1875 and remained open for four years. It was usually staffed by a paymaster, a clerk, and occasionally a surgeon. The U.S. Naval Depot opened for a second time in Nagasaki in 1881 at No. 3 Ōura, which was still the property of Walsh & Co., even though the firm had closed its Nagasaki office a decade earlier. The office was initially staffed by William W. Barry who served as paymaster, and his younger brother James H. Barry (both of Massachusetts) who was the clerk. They were accompanied during their two years in Nagasaki by their wives, Ellen and Sophie, respectively. The naval stores attached to the Depot were auctioned off in November 1884, and the facility closed soon thereafter. No. 3 Ōura was sold by Walsh & Co. to Mitsui Bussan in April 1886.

Nagasaki YMCA

The modest two-story structure situated along the streetcar tracks at Ofunagura-machi which serves as the current home of the Nagasaki Young Men's Christian Association offers little indication of the organization's long and illustrious past. The beginnings of the Nagasaki Y.M.C.A. date back almost 100 years to a visit by a touring American evangelist who arrived in the city on November 9, 1896. The weeklong visit by John R. Mott (1865-1955) of the World's Student Christian Federation inspired the immediate establishment of an association of young students under the supervision of Sasamori Uichiro (1867-1911), a teacher at the boys' Methodist mission school, Chinzei Gakuin. Mott and Sasamori would become instrumental in the institution of student and city YMCAs in Nagasaki, as well as the construction of the town's first YMCA building at Fukuro-machi (present-day Sakae-machi) in 1906.

There had been YMCAs in Japan since 1880, and by the time of Mott's arrival in Nagasaki there were eight associations in the country. It was with Mott's tour of Japan, however, that the YMCA movement began to gain momentum. Prior to his departure from Japan, Mott addressed a two-day national convention in Tokyo, which had been called to form a national student YMCA. At this convention, Ibuka Kajinosuke of Meiji Gakuin was appointed President of the new organization. By spring 1897, 25 of the student YMCAs in Japan had entered the Union. They represented nearly all the Christian Schools for boys and most of the higher Government schools and colleges. In Nagasaki, there were student associations at Chinzei, Tōzan Gakuin (the Reformed Church boys' school), and the Medical College.

In April 1898, the YMCA national headquarters in Tokyo dispatched Ibuka, John T. Swift and Galen Fisher to tour colleges in western Japan. The mission began its tour with a visit to Nagasaki, which was hosting the Training Conference for the YMCAs of Kyushu. Mott returned to Japan from September to October 1901; Nagasaki being the last stop on his tour. While in Nagasaki, he gave an evangelistic talk to a packed house of 400. Among those in the audience were Sasamori and his students.

The inspiration provided by Mott's second visit led directly to the creation of a citywide association and an intense fund raising campaign to erect a building for the Nagasaki YMCA; both efforts were headed by Sasamori. In November, a small group of Nagasaki residents that included Sasamori, Suganuma Motonosuke, Miyakoshi Shinjiro, Umeda Shingoro and Hirotsu Tokichi, met to form a Nagasaki YMCA. This was followed in February 1902 by the first general meeting, at which time the appointment of a 15-man Board of Directors completed the establishment of the association. In an April letter to Mott, V.H. Helm, Secretary of the Japan YMCA mission, recounted the subsequent events in Nagasaki.

A city [Association] has been organized in Nagasaki with Dr. Sasamori as president. They have a board of 15 directors including a group of laymen who in caliber, influence and position are unsurpassed by any city in the country outside of Tokyo.... They have taken of the building question with great vigor. Their idea is a hall seating at least 500.... Dr. Sasamori says: 'the board is very enthusiastic to build an [Association] hall.... The board pledges to raise at least 5,000 yen toward the new building if you can help us out with the rest of the sum which will be 15,000 yen.' He further says: 'As to the 20,000 yen building I am willing to devote my time and energy when I go to America in order to get contributions.'

Before leaving Japan, Sasamori wrote to Mott of developments concerning the Nagasaki YMCA and of his plans to travel to the United States to solicit funds.

The [Nagasaki YMCA] is the result of your work here. We have more than 100 members and are planning for a new building. The board of Managers pledges to raise here 1/4 of all expenses.... The night school and preaching services for city young men are already started and are quite hopeful. If you would give a permission or an approval, I am instructed to raise $10,000.

Sasamori's travel plans called for him to leave Nagasaki in May and, after a brief consultation with YMCA officials in Tokyo, depart Japan in early June. He took with him a document entitled "An Appeal for an Association Hall for Nagasaki, Japan." The appeal was endorsed by the YMCA National Committee of Japan, the Board of Directors of the Nagasaki YMCA, local Japanese pastors, and Western missionaries/teachers. In the appeal, Nagasaki was described as having 25,000 men between the ages of 16 and 35 who had come from their country homes to the city in search of an education and/or employment. There they encountered "The dregs of many nationalities [who had] gravitated to form a cess-pool of deceit and vice." The few churches in the city did what they could for these young men, but it was not enough. What was needed, according to the appeal, was a YMCA that could provide "entertainment, practical instruction, and friendship... on the basis of a positive, winning Christianity.... " It was with this goal in mind that Sasamori left for the United States on his fund raising tour.

Sasamori arrived in Seattle on June 19 and left immediately to meet Mott for the final day of a conference at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. From there he proceeded to the YMCA Intercollegiate Conference at Northfield, Massachusetts, where he discussed fundraising plans with Mott and other leading YMCA officials. As a result of this meeting, it was decided that fundraising efforts in the United States should be postponed until the fall.

In August, Sasamori represented Japan at the World's Student Christian Federation meeting at Soro, Denmark. There he convinced members to hold the next Federation conference in Japan. Unfortunately, the Russo-Japanese War delayed the meeting until 1907. From Denmark Sasamori moved on to Oslo, Norway, where he was the Japanese representative to the World's Alliance Conference.

Sasamori returned to the United States in early September to begin his fund raising tour. A new U.S. goal of $12,000 ($2,000 more than the original request) was set. If Sasamori could collect pledges totaling $7,000, the national organization agreed to contribute an additional $5,000. On his fund raising tour Sasamori visited Baltimore, MD; Philadelphia, PA; New York City; Bridgeport, MA; Brooklyn, NY; Dayton, OH; Greencastle, IN; Bloomington, IN; Terre Haute, IN; Chicago, IL; Racine, WI; Milwaukee, WI; Omaha, NB; Portland OR; and Seattle, WA. The Central Branch of the Brooklyn YMCA developed a vigorous campaign to meet its $2,000 pledge for the Nagasaki building fund. It issued 2,000 shares of stock at one dollar apiece to raise the needed money. Those purchasing ten or more shares were made honorary life members of the Nagasaki Association.

Sasamori's October visit to Greencastle, Indiana marked the return to his alma mater, De Pauw University. In 1885, at age 18, the Hirosaki native had left Japan to attend De Pauw. "Sasamori was awarded the degree of bachelor of philosophy in 1891, bachelor of sacred theology in 1892, and doctor of philosophy in 1893, becoming the only person to earn three such De Pauw degrees."

By the time of Sasamori's departure from Seattle on October 21, he was still $1,000 short of the $7,000 needed to ensure the additional $5,000 pledge from the U.S. national organization. In spite of this shortfall, Mott agreed to try and help him meet his goal. The $12,000 pledge from the United States for the Nagasaki YMCA building was, however, based on two conditions: First, that the friends in Nagasaki secure the lot and pay for it in full. Secondly, that some satisfactory arrangement is made concerning the tenure or holding of the property.

The other issue that arose during Sasamori's trip to the U.S. was the possibility of stationing a foreign secretary in Nagasaki to assist the operation of the YMCA. Sasamori felt that two secretaries (one each for the student and city YMCAs) were needed, while Mott indicated that the national organization would supply one man for southwest Japan in 1903.

Sasamori returned to Yokohama from his trip abroad in early November and arrived in Nagasaki on November 19. He reported the two stipulations regarding U.S. pledges to the Board of Directors, and noted that "They all gladly accepted them as they are all the first class Christians."

The effort to raise funds in Nagasaki proved even more difficult than that in the United States. In March 1903 Galen Fisher of the Japan YMCA headquarters in Tokyo wrote to Mott asking that part of the pledged U.S. money be sent to Nagasaki as soon as possible" to exert a moral stimulative influence over Japanese businessmen who distrust the reality of the American backing." Sasamori wrote to Mott concerning the same matter in May, asking that some of the money be released in order to ease the funding effort in Nagasaki. He complained that it was "much harder work to raise a hundred dollars [in Nagasaki] than a thousand dollars in America. The Japanese people in general are not used to giving a large sum for public enterprises and especially for Christian enterprises."

In July, Mott responded to the requests of Fisher and Sasamori by agreeing to send at least $5,000 to Nagasaki. This he hoped would enable Sasamori to raise the additional $4,000 needed in local pledges. In the same letter Mott also noted that the Foreign Committee hoped to decide on a foreign secretary for Nagasaki within a few days, and that this person would sail for Japan in early autumn.

V.W. Helm, Secretary of the YMCA mission in Japan, visited Nagasaki in October to help solicit funds among Japanese and foreign residents of the town. According to Helm, at least ¥6,000 ($3,000) would be needed to purchase a lot to house the new YMCA buildings. The building would tentatively include a two-story main structure with classrooms, reading rooms, social rooms and administrative offices, plus a large auditorium for public gatherings.

Helm and Sasamori organized a dinner and general meeting of local businessmen and dignitaries at Fukuya Restaurant to discuss the issue of fundraising. Governor Arakawa sent a letter endorsing the movement, which Sasamori read to the gathering. The chairman of the city council and a local newspaper official also endorsed the fundraising efforts in short speeches. With such widespread support, it appeared as if raising the necessary money for the building fund and lot would be relatively simple.

The situation changed dramatically, however, when Sasamori and others in the movement went around in the spring of 1904 to collect money from those who had endorsed the project. In the midst of our work the declaration of war [against Russia] came out, and it became necessary for us to postpone our movement for several reasons, but the greatest among them was the fact that this war will cost much to our people and that we must give up every other enterprise in order to save money for the war. This sentiment was so strong that the public library movement, and the movement of raising the funds for the School for the Blind and Deaf, which were going on at the same time with our YMCA work, were given up for the time being. If we had continued our work in spite of it, the people might have criticized us as not being patriotic. At that time the Buddhists had their meeting and have spoken to that effect. Under the circumstances we thought it wise to wait for better times to come, and to keep, on the other hand, the sympathy and confidence of our people here.

By the time of the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War -2,500 had been raised and Sasamori was confident another -500 could easily be added. He felt, however, that the remainder would have to wait until the end of the war. It was a difficult time for Sasamori, because not only was he disappointed in his inability to raise the necessary funds, but in June his health broke down and the person sent to be the foreign secretary in Nagasaki, N. Wilbur Helm, had to return to the United States because his wife became very ill. While waiting for the war to end, his health to improve, and a replacement for Helm, Sasamori proceeded with plans for a student evangelical campaign in November.

Good news was not long in coming, as by December land prices in Nagasaki had fallen to the point where with a little help from the YMCA headquarters in New York, a good lot could be purchased. The lot chosen was the site of a Shinto shrine (Ryumon) in the center of the city: “This [shrine] will be taken down for to give a place for our Christian edifice.... Last spring the price of the lot was 40 yen per six feet square.... Now we made arrangements with the sect to buy it for 19 yen per six feet square.... The Board of Managers decided to take the lot, and all missionaries here endorsed the movement.”

The total price for the lot was ¥5,500; less than a third of what it would have cost earlier in the year. Since the money collected in Nagasaki had nearly reached ¥3,000, the Board asked Mott if the New York headquarters would cover the remaining ¥2,500, so that construction of buildings could begin early the following year. Sasamori was also able to report the encouraging news that a student YMCA had recently been established at the commercial school in Nagasaki and that 27 students had been converted to Christianity in the November evangelical campaign.

The U.S. national organization agreed to pay the additional ¥2,500, so in January 1905 the lot was purchased. Around the same time, the Rev. Henry Stout of the Reformed Church consented to postpone his return to the United States in order to supervise the construction of the YMCA building. With the building issue resolved, Sasamori turned to the problem of a foreign secretary for Nagasaki. He wrote to Mott that he hoped to receive a secretary by the time the building opened. This matter was also quickly resolved when on April 1 John Merle Davis, the Kyoto-born son of missionaries, agreed to take the position in Nagasaki.

Much of the first half of 1905 was consumed by an exchange of blueprints between Sasamori and the YMCA headquarters in New York concerning the proposed three-story main building and auditorium. Modifications had to be made to meet the strict specifications of YMCA facilities without going over budget. With the blueprints approved, the building construction, headed by a Japanese carpenter and supervised by Stout, could finally proceed. On May 26, 1905 the stone-laying ceremony marking the beginning of construction took place.

Although Sasamori continued to have problems with his health, his dream of a full-fledged YMCA in Nagasaki was rapidly becoming a reality. On August 23, 1905 the Nagasaki YMCA received permission to incorporate from the Minister of the Interior, thus making the association a legal entity even before its building was completed. Davis, the foreign secretary, arrived with his wife in December, and in January the Board of Directors purchased the lot adjoining the one where the building was being erected. Finally, on May 14, 1906 the new YMCA building at No. 9 Fukuro-machi was dedicated.

The three-story red-brick structure contained a 750-seat auditorium, a large gymnasium (unequipped), reading and dining rooms, a library, and small class and meeting rooms. The dedication ceremony, presided over by Sasamori and attended by about 600 people, was conducted in the new auditorium. According to a newspaper account of the ceremony, all sections of the community were well represented. Those attending included representatives of the Governor's and Mayor's offices, Rev. Evington of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Harris of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. Pieters of the Reformed Church, Galen Fisher of the Japan YMCA headquarters in Tokyo, "nearly all the resident missionaries, prominent Japanese merchants, and students from the medical, city, and mission schools...."

Seamen's Home

A third, and ultimately successful, attempt to establish a non-alcoholic home for visiting sailors in Nagasaki's foreign settlement grew out of efforts by sailors from an American man-of-war and resident Protestant missionaries from 1894 to 1896. The resulting "Seamen's' Home" opened on February 3, 1896 and continued operating until just prior to the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941.

The impetus for this final attempt came from a small group of American sailors aboard the USS Charleston, which was in Nagasaki for ten months from 1894 to 1895 undergoing repairs. They decided that what was needed was a Seamen's Home based on temperance principles. In order to encourage such an institution, the crewmembers donated 650 yen. They then visited local missionaries to explain their purpose and request that an effort be made to start a Home for Seamen. The mission achieved some success in the form of donations from foreign residents in Kyushu. With the money collected a building at No. 26 Ōura (ironically, a former grog shop) was purchased in November in the name of five local Protestant missionaries who served as the Board of Directors of the Seamen's' Home.

Seeing that the home was, for all practical purposes, a reality, the crew members of the USS Charleston donated another 400 yen to the project. The building, known as "The Christian Endeavour Home for Seamen," was formally opened on February 3, 1896 by the Rev. Bishop Evington. Initially, it had only nine rooms and could provide lodging for just 16 men, but an additional 3,500 yen was used to expand the facilities. By December 1897, it had 12 rooms, 34 beds, two bathrooms, a dining room for 20, a large general room, a writing room and a library. At the close of its first decade, it could provide sleeping accommodations for 90 men. Even this proved insufficient, however, when more than one man-of-war was in port at the same time.

The major problem for the Home was that the influx of sailors was very sporadic. As many as 1,000 sailors could be in port at a time, but Nagasaki could also sometimes go months between visits from the war vessels. The other difficulty faced in the early years was the lack of a married couple to manage the institution. Elizabeth Mills operated the home for the first two years, but it was not until October 1897 that John Makins and his wife were hired as permanent managers. Other managers who followed included Risher W. Thornberry, Mr. and Mrs. Jonus White, Mr. and Mrs. James Hatter and Mr. and Mrs. E.A. Clark.

The first decade of the Home coincided with the peak of warship activity in Nagasaki. Events such as the Sino-Japanese War, American involvement in the Philippines, and the Boxer Rebellion meant that there was almost always business for the Seamen's Home. Ship repairs also brought large numbers of men to port for long periods of time. The Seamen's Home became practically a self-supporting institution, operating from its receipts and a small grant from the Seamen's Friends' Society of the United States. Finally, even the latter support was deemed unnecessary by the Board of Directors, and the Home became financially independent.

The Russo-Japanese War brought great changes to Nagasaki, however, and naval activity at the port became considerably less than it had been before the war. By early 1907 the Seamen's Home was actively soliciting funds to continue operating. The plan was for assistance to come not only from foreign residents in Nagasaki, but also

from foreign communities throughout East Asia. The person chosen to carry the appeal abroad was William J. Damson, an English teacher at the City Commercial School. He toured Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, New Zealand and Australia and visited all the foreign settlements in the Far East in order to solicit funds for the Home.

Damson's efforts alone were not enough, however, and additional measures had to be taken. In an attempt to cut costs, the Board of Directors decided to partially close the Seamen's Home during the relatively lax summer months. Other funds came in through benefit concerts at the Public Hall performed by the crews of foreign ships in port.

Gradually, the prospects of the Seamen's Home improved, and by the end of 1909 the institution was once again doing well. By the close of 1910 the Home was running a surplus because of the heavy traffic in U.S. and British transports and warships at the port.

The outbreak of World War I brought renewed financial problems for the Seamen's Home as men-of-war stopped coming to the port. In 1916, the roof of the English church in Nagasaki collapsed in August rendering the building unusable. Because of this, Sunday English language services were moved to the parlor of the Seamen's Home, where they remained for years. The following year, the Home found the institutional affiliation it had been searching for when allied itself with the British and Foreign Sailors' Society.

The year 1918 proved to be one of the best for the Seamen's Home. It began with the unexpected housing for months of a large contingent of engineers belonging to the Russian Railway Service. The year concluded with the war over in favor of the Allies, the promise of renewed commercial trade at Nagasaki, and a balance of over 2,000 yen in the account of the Seamen's Home.

The year 1919, while relatively successful financially for the Home because of the great number of U.S. transports that visited Nagasaki, was a period of tremendous change in terms of personnel. James Hatter, who had been manager of the facility for 11 years, died in February; A.B. Hutchinson, President of the Board of Directors and a long-time supporter of the Home died in August; and Anthony Walvoord, Secretary and Treasurer of the Board of Directors, passed away in September. In addition, three members of the Board of Directors — Elizabeth Russell, one of the founding members, H.W. Johns, and R.S. Spencer — all retired.

By 1920, replacements had been found for all of the vacancies created by events of the previous year. The most important addition was that of Mr. and Mrs. E.A. Clark as port missionary and manager of the Home, respectively. The Australian couple was sent to Nagasaki by the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, who according to an agreement reached earlier with the Nagasaki Board, agreed to pay their salary. With ships once again returning to port and a salaried couple on hand to manage affairs, the future looked bright indeed for the Home.

The Seamen's Home had its ups and downs over the next two decades, but managed to remain open until just prior to the beginning of hostilities between Japan and the United States in World War II. In summary, the Home operated on a continual basis in Nagasaki for more than 40 years, providing American and European sailors an alternative to the grog shops and brothels of the city. It offered aid and comfort when needed, and a place to relax and socialize without having to consume alcoholic beverages. By providing such facilities, the Home made a positive contribution to Nagasaki that could be appreciated by foreigners and Japanese alike.

American Consulate

By treaty, the United States was authorized to establish a consulate in Nagasaki by the time of the opening of the foreign settlement in July 1859. When U.S. Consul-General Townshend Harris arrived in Nagasaki in late April 1859, a few American merchants had already established themselves in town. At the beginning of May, Harris designated one of these merchants, a New York businessman named John G. Walsh, as U.S. Consul to Nagasaki. Walsh, who headed the trading firm Walsh & Co., was chosen by Harris out of necessity, since Congress had not yet provided for the appointment of anyone to the post. As he awaited the completion of the foreign settlement, he established the first U.S. consulate in the Japanese section of the city at Hirobaba.

John Walsh was unique among the men who served as U.S. Consul to Nagasaki. He was, for all practical purposes, little more than an acting merchant-consul who was permitted to conduct his own private business while serving as consul without pay. His main duties were to serve as the consular magistrate and to maintain various official records for the U.S. government.

Walsh was replaced as consul in October 1865 by Willie P. Mangum, the nephew and adopted son of a famous North Carolina judge and presidential candidate of the same name. Three weeks after arriving in Nagasaki, he had a new U.S. Consulate built on Minamiyamate. In March 1880, Mangum was appointed consul to Tientsin, China by President Hayes, but before taking office he sailed to Korea with Commodore Robert Shufeldt as a translator. Unfortunately, Mangum became ill in Korea and returned to Nagasaki in mid-June. He served until the end of June and then departed for Tientsin. Mangum never completely recovered from his illness, however, and died in Tientsin in February 1881.

Mangum was replaced as U.S. Consul to Nagasaki by General Alexander C. Jones, a native Virginian who had served as a major in the 44th Virginia Army under Robert E. Lee during the Civil War. Jones took charge of the consulate on July 1, 1881; by this time the office had been moved to Higashiyamate. In 1885 Jones was forced to find another site for the American consulate when the proprietor sold the Higashiyamate lot. He eventually rented a lot across town again at No. 14 Minamiyamate, the old Alt house. In June 1885, Jones was told that he was being replaced as U.S. Consul to Nagasaki. Alexander Jones, accompanied by his wife and infant daughter, left for the United States on October 6. In November 1886, he was appointed Consul to Chinkiang, China, where he remained until his death in January 1898.

Jones' successor was John Birch, a native of Pennsylvania, who at the time of his appointment was the Superintendent of Schools at Wheeling, West Virginia. In recognition for organizing and heading the Young Men's Democratic Club, Birch was appointed consul at Nagasaki by the new Democratic President Grover Cleveland. When Birch arrived in Nagasaki, the old consulate building was being taken over by the British government, so he rented land nearby and built a new American consulate there. With the election of the Republican President Benjamin Harrison in the U.S. in early 1890, Birch was in jeopardy of losing his post in Nagasaki. In hopes of averting his transfer, in May a large group of foreign and native residents of Nagasaki submitted a petition to Harrison asking him to reappoint Birch. The petition proved unsuccessful, however, and in June word was received that Birch had been relieved of his post. Almost immediately Birch learned that he had been reappointed principal of the Linsly Institute, a prominent boys' school in Wheeling that he had earlier headed.

William H. Abercrombie, a native of New York but living in Jersey City, New Jersey at the time of his appointment in May 1890, took over for birch. Abercrombie had been a physician for 18 years prior to being appointed consul, and his sole qualification for office apparently was that he was the nephew of Admiral Robert Shufeldt, who had strong connections with the Republican administration. Abercrombie arrived in Nagasaki in August 1890, but it was not until November that the town was declared free of cholera (over 2,500 people, mostly Japanese, had died). What effect the outbreak of cholera may have had on the newly arrived consul is difficult to judge, but almost from the beginning Abercrombie complained of poor health and took a number of medical leaves.

In January 1898 Abercrombie was replaced and he returned to his home in Yonkers, New York, apparently never holding another diplomatic position again. In poor health from the beginning, Abercrombie did little to distinguish himself as consul to Nagasaki, and certainly was not held in the esteem that his two immediate predecessors had been by the people of the town.

Charles B. Harris, who replaced Abercrombie, was born in Goshen, Indiana in December 1843. He enlisted in Company B, 13th Indiana Volunteers, in April 1861 and was honorably discharged for disability in December of the same year. At various times after that he was engaged in banking, farming, stock-raising, and the dairy business, and was President of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture upon his appointment to consul at Nagasaki in October 1897. Harris arrived in Nagasaki in January 1898. In May 1899 all U.S. consular courts in Japan were told to dispose of their cases prior to July 17 when they would lose their jurisdiction in accordance with the U.S.-Japan treaty of November 1894. From January 1899 to December 1901 the American consulate was located on the Ōura bund. In January 1902, however, it was moved once again to No.12 Higashiyamate, where it remained until May 1921. On March 30, 1907 Harris was appointed Consul to Reichenberg, Austria, although he remained at his post in Nagasaki until mid-April.

Harris' departure from Nagasaki marked the end of a 42-year period in which American consuls were chosen primarily because of their political connections. Consuls in this period had no legal training and little or no prior experience. Their duties revolved around serving as consular magistrate (until July 1899), keeping a wide variety of records, and acting as the social leader of the American community in Nagasaki. With the reorganization of the U.S. consular system in 1906, the method for selecting consuls was drastically altered. No longer was a person's political contribution to the party in power the primary criterion for selection. Instead, consuls were chosen from a pool of foreign service officials who had already established themselves through prior diplomatic service — more often than not in Japan.

The first person assigned to Nagasaki after the 1906 reforms was George H. Scidmore, a long-time official at the U.S. Consulate at Yokohama. Scidmore was in a sense a transitional figure between the old system of appointment and the new, having been initially assigned to Japan in 1884, but representing a very different kind of official than the ones sent to Nagasaki in the earlier period. Scidmore, born in Dubuque, Iowa in October 1854, entered the U.S. consular service in 1877 when he was appointed Vice-Consul at Dunferline, Scotland. Seven years later he came to Japan as Vice-Consul at Osaka and Hyogo. He remained in Japan after that, except for brief stints in Shanghai and Fiji. He spent most of his time with the American Consulate in Yokohama and the American Embassy in Tokyo. Scidmore stayed only two years in Nagasaki, and was promoted to Consul at Kobe in August 1909.

Replacing Scidmore in Nagasaki was Carl F. Deichman, who was born in St. Louis, Missouri in November 1871. Deichman was in business in St. Louis until 1899, when he joined the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. In March 1907 he was appointed U.S. Consul to Manzanilla, Mexico, followed by similar duty at Tamsui, Formosa from 1908 to 1909. Arriving in Nagasaki in mid-August 1909, Deichman almost immediately applied for a transfer. Unable to achieve this, he instead took a 60-day leave to the U.S. in October 1910 — somehow managing to extend it to six months. Deichman had to wait until May 1915 before he was transferred to Consul at Bombay.

E. Carlton Baker followed Deichman as U.S. Consul to Nagasaki. Baker, who was born in July 1882, received his B.S. from the University of California in 1905. In January 1906 he was appointed Vice-Consul and Marshal to Foochow, China, and from 1907 to 1908 he held the same position at Amoy. He was reassigned to Foochow in 1908, and then in February 1909 he was transferred to the Department of State as assistant to the chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs. He did not remain there for long, however, as later in the year he was appointed Consul to Antung, China. In August 1911 Baker was appointed Consul to Chungking, where he remained until his transfer to Nagasaki. Appointed in December 1914, Baker arrived in Nagasaki with his wife and his sister in May 1915. Baker stayed in Nagasaki only 18 months before being transferred to Mukden as U.S. Consul. Primarily a China specialist in the foreign service, Baker spent little time in Japan.

The next three U.S. Consuls to Nagasaki further reflected the changes in the foreign service that occurred in 1906. All three initially came to Japan as student interpreters between 1907 and 1912 and worked their way up the diplomatic ladder. Thus the consuls that served in Nagasaki after 1916 not only had prior diplomatic service, but some of this service occurred in Japan and they were skilled in the Japanese language.

Replacing Baker in Nagasaki was Edwin L. Neville, a native of Cleveland, Ohio who was born in November 1884. After receiving a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1907, Neville went to Japan as a student interpreter in August of the same year. He later spent time at both Dairen and Seoul as Vice-Consul. In September 1913 he was appointed Consul to Antung, China, and the following year transferred to the same position at Taihoku, Formosa. It was while serving at this post that he was named Consul to Nagasaki in November 1916. Neville's three year tenure in Nagasaki, while basically uneventful, saw him twice confined to bed because of illness. Finally, in December 1919 he was transferred back to the U.S. to work at the Far Eastern Division of the Department of State.

The new Consul to Nagasaki replacing Neville was Raymond S. Curtice, a native of Connecticut who was assigned to Nagasaki in December 1919 but did not arrive at the port until March 1920. Curtice, who had first come to Japan as a Student Interpreter in 1910, was married to the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. W.B. Scranton of Kobe. Prior to his arrival in Nagasaki, Curtice had served with the U.S. foreign service in Tokyo, Yokohama, Seoul, Dairen, and the Foreign Affairs Division of the Department of State, but Nagasaki was his first appointment as Consul. Curtice's tenure in Nagasaki began pleasantly enough, as within three months of his arrival, his third child was born. Conditions would deteriorate rapidly, however, and by September the Consul General at Large was in Nagasaki to investigate Curtice. In August 1921 Curtice was ordered to proceed to Washington D.C. In the meantime, an auditor was sent by the U.S. government to further investigate Curtice's finances. The auditor concluded that Curtice had embezzled and should be fined. Raymond Curtice sailed for San Francisco on December 4, 1921, arriving on the 26th. He then proceeded to Washington, and later to a Wilmington, Delaware hotel, to await the results of the investigation of his case. On February 15, 1922 Curtice committed suicide in his hotel room with an old Japanese automatic revolver.

At the beginning of November 1922, Henry Hitchcock took charge as U.S. Consul in Nagasaki. Hitchcock, who had served earlier in Nagasaki on an interim basis, was a native of Canton Centre, Connecticut, having been born there in March 1887. Upon graduating from Yale in 1909, Hitchcock was sent to Japan as a Student Interpreter with the American Embassy in Tokyo in 1912. In 1914 he was assigned to the consulate in Yokohama, and in 1915 he was promoted to Vice-Consul there. Hitchcock served as Vice-Consul in Nagasaki from mid-1916 to early 1917. After marrying in March 1919 in New Jersey, he was assigned as Consul to Taihoku, Formosa, where he remained until November 1922 and his transfer to Nagasaki. In November 1924, Hitchcock was temporarily assigned duty at the Consulate General in Tokyo. Vice-Consul Lawrence Salisbury ran the consulate in Nagasaki during his absence. In March and again in May, Hitchcock also temporarily took over for the Consul at Kobe. This duty lasted until mid-November. On February 21, 1933, Hitchcock took a sick leave to go to Yokohama to have his tonsils removed. Five days later, he suffered a mild heart attack at the home of his cousin in Yokohama. Apparently recovered, he entered the hospital the following day, and on February 28 he underwent the operation to remove his tonsils. All seemingly went well, but on March 1 while talking to his cousin he was stricken with a sudden heart attack and died almost instantly. Mrs. Hitchcock, who had stayed behind in Nagasaki, was notified of her husband's death, which occurred less than a week before his 46th birthday. The body was cremated on March 3, and memorial services were held in Yokohama the following day. Hitchcock was survived by his wife, three children aged eight to 15, and his mother in Nagasaki, as well as three sisters in America.

Glen Bruner, a local Methodist missionary, was serving as Vice-Consul in Nagasaki at the time of Hitchcock's death. He operated the consulate there until October 1933, when Carl O. Spamer of Maryland came to assume the office of Consul. Bruner remained as Vice-Consul. Little is known of Spamer's three-year tenure in Nagasaki. He served as Consul until September 1936, when he retired from the foreign service. Upon retirement, Spamer and his wife settled in Summit, New Jersey.

Spamer was followed in Nagasaki by Edward S. Maney of Texas, who was assigned to the post in December 1936, but did not arrive until February 1937. Maney`s stay was brief indeed, as in August he was named a Secretary in the Diplomatic Service of the U.S., and in September he was appointed Consul to London. He was ordered to wait in Nagasaki for the arrival of his successor before departing.

Maney was replaced by Arthur F. Tower of New York in October. Tower remained in Nagasaki except for leaves of absences to the U.S. in April 1938, November 1939, and November 1940. In January 1941, as relations between Japan and the United States continued to worsen, his wife and children were sent, for reasons of safety, to Hawaii — a choice that later in the year would prove quite ironic. On June 23 Tower was ordered to close immediately the consulate at Nagasaki and to proceed to Kobe to assume charge there. Tower left Nagasaki on August 4, and after a brief stop in Kobe, proceeded to Tokyo for consultations. On August 11 he assumed charge of the Kobe Consulate. He was still in charge when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor on December 8. Arthur Tower remained in Japan until the middle of 1942, when he was repatriated on the S.S. Gripsholm, which arrived in New York City on August 12, 1942.

British Consulate

On June 4, 1859, HMS Sampson sailed into Nagasaki Harbor carrying Rutherford Alcock, a former army surgeon appointed consul-general to Japan and leader of the first British delegation to Edo. The other passengers included Captain Howard Vyse and C. Pemberton Hodgson, consuls-designate for Kanagawa (Yokohama) and Hakodate, respectively. George S. Morrison, the consul-designate for Nagasaki and second in command, had been delayed and unable to join the group. The men were the first members of the Japan Consular Service, a body organized by the British Foreign Office on the same model as the diplomatic service established earlier in China.

Soon after reaching Nagasaki, Alcock arranged to rent buildings at Myōgyōji, a Buddhist temple perched on the hillside overlooking Ōura Creek and the site of the proposed foreign settlement. The Britons raised the Union Jack at Myōgyōji on June 13, marking the establishment of the first British Consulate in Japan.

George S. Morrison finally arrived in Nagasaki on August 6, 1859. He served as British Consul until December 1863. During this tour of duty in Nagasaki, he helped to establish regulations for British citizens in Nagasaki, negotiated with Japanese officials about living and business conditions in the foreign settlement, made plans for a new enlarged British consulate, and generally hammered out guidelines for the treaty port of Nagasaki based upon his experiences in China. Morrison and other British officials were attacked by samurai from the Mito domain on the night of July 5, 1861 at the Legation in Edo, and the Nagasaki consul returned to England to recuperate. Morrison came back to Nagasaki in April 1863 and supervised the removal of the British Consulate to Green's Hotel, a large building erected at No.11 Minamiyamate by Matthew Green, who had been working as a constable at the consulate.

Conditions for foreigners in Nagasaki deteriorated in 1863. Satsuma and Choshu officials had challenged the Tokugawa Shogunate and threatened to kill foreigners in the treaty ports. Morrison sought protection from the Royal Navy, and the British residents of Nagasaki slept with revolvers under the pillows. The crisis was eventually resolved, but Morrison soon resigned and returned permanently to England. A reported plot to assassinate Morrison relayed to him by Thomas Glover probably hastened his decision to leave. George Morrison retired from the British Consular Service at age 31 due to poor health. Retirement must have suited him well, because he lived another 30 years after leaving Nagasaki. He died on August 20, 1893 at the age of 62.

In 1865, Abel A.J. Gower, who had taken over as British consul the previous year, moved the consulate to No.9 Higashiyamate, renting a two-story building from Glover & Co. (representatives for Dent & Co., holders of the perpetual lease). Gower was succeeded by Marcus O. Flowers and then by James Troup, who moved the British Consulate from No.9 Higashiyamate to No.6 Ōura in 1882. The stone warehouse at the rear of the property, formerly part of the Maltby & Co. premises, was converted into a consular jail. Two years later, Charles Sutton (the holder of the perpetual lease) sold the buildings at No.6 Ōura to Her British Majesty's First Commissioner of Works for $2,130 (Mexican dollars).

In 1904, the Nagasaki British Consulate was moved to a temporary location at No. 47 Sagarimatsu to allow for the construction of a new building at No.6 Ōura. Designed by William Cowan of the Office of Works in Shanghai, the new premises consisted of a rather subdued two-story brick and stone main building with separate accommodations for British and Japanese staff and gardens enclosed by a stone wall. The consuls who served here over the following years included F.W. Playfair, A..M. Chalmers, Ralph G.E. Forster, J.B. Rentiers, J.T. Wawn, Thomas G. Harrington, Oswald White, and M. Paske-Smith. The last Nagasaki British Consul, Ferdinand C. Greatrex, was detained along with his wife by Japanese police after the outbreak of World War II in 1941 and returned to England on an exchange ship the following year.

After the war, no effort was made to revive the consulate in Nagasaki, and the British government sold the property to Nagasaki City in 1955. Used as a science museum and later art gallery, the building was designated an Important Cultural Property by the Japanese government in 1990. Today the red-brick building still stands on the site.

French Consulate

See French Consulate in the Ōura Articles section.

Portuguese Consulate

The initial Portuguese Consul in Nagasaki was the British merchant Joseph Evans, who from 1859 to 1861 was the local representative of Dent & Co. at No. 1 Ōura. In 1861, Jose Loureiro, a Portuguese merchant, took over and directed the consulate for nearly a decade at No. 10 Higashiyamate. From this time on, except for two brief stints when the American Consul supervised Portuguese affairs (1870-71 and 1888), merchants attached to Holme, Ringer & Co. at No. 7 Ōura looked after Portuguese interests in Nagasaki. These merchants included Thomas Glover, A.B. Glover, Frederick Krebs, Frederick Ringer, P.J. Buckland and Sydney Ringer.

Russian Consulate

The first Russian Consular Agent in Nagasaki was Alexander E. Philippeus (Aleksandr E. Fillipeus) who served from November 1868 to March 1869 at No. 9 Minamiyamate and then again from October 1870 to 1871 at No. 17 Minamiyamate. Alexander E. Philippeus (also listed as Philippen, Philipens, Philippin, and Philippeu) listed as Russian Consul/Russian Consular Agent in Japanese official correspondence of Meiji 1, 11th month, 8th day (Nov. 8, 1868). Listed this way until March 11, 1869. J.W. Leembruggen was listed as Consul from April 18, 1869 to October 8, 1870. Philippes was listed again from October 1870 to February 4, 1871. By January 6, 1872 George Westphal, the Consul for North Germany (Prussia) was signing for Russian interests. Philippeus was a Russian merchant from St. Petersburg who was a prominent figure in the fur trade at Kamchatka. He served, for all practical purposes, as a merchant consul.

While Philippeus was away from April 1869 to October 1870, Johannes W. Leembruggen, a Dutch-born Prussian national under American protection, and an employee of the American firm Walsh & Co., served as acting consul. During this interim period, the Russian flag flew over the Walsh & Co. property at No. 12 Higashiyamate. From 1872 to 1875, the German Consul (filled by a resident German merchant) looked after Russian interests as acting consul.

The first Russian Consul to have had diplomatic training was Alexander E. Olarovsky (Aleksandr E. Olorovskii), who had previously worked at consulates in China and was serving as Acting Russian Consul in Hakodate at the time of his appointment to Nagasaki in 1875. The French, English and Russian-speaking Olarovsky established the Russian consulate at No. 5A Minamiyamate. He purchased the buildings from the American Consul Willie Mangum, who was moving his office and residence across town. The Russian consulate would remain at No. 5A Minamiyamate for the next 50 years.

Olarovsky served as Russian Consul in Nagasaki until mid-1880. Replacing him on a temporary basis was Vasili I. Kostileff (Vasilii I. Kostylev), who was working as a student interpreter at the Russian Legation in Tokyo when he was appointed Acting Consul in Nagasaki. [Lensen]Upon Olarovsky's appointment as Consul-General for Russia in San Francisco in mid-1881, Kostileff remained in Nagasaki until the new Consul, P. Rumine (Oscar P. Rumin), arrived in June.

Kostileff returned to Nagasaki in 1883, this time as Consul. He remained in office until June 1900, except for brief periods when Gregory A. de Wollant (Grigory/Gregoire A. de Wollant) served intermittently as Acting Consul from 1887 to1892, and M. Oustinoff held the same position in 1898. During Kostileff's time in office, a Russian chapel and a naval hospital were added to the consular complex at Minamiyamate. Kostileff published a history of Japan during this period, while de Wollant later wrote a book entitled The Land of the Rising Sun.

Prince Alexander A. Gagarin (Aleksandr A. Gagarin) served as Russian Consul in Nagasaki from 1901 to the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904. During Gagarin's tenure in Nagasaki, he replaced many of the old consular buildings and expanded the complex grounds. Also built by Garagin in this period was the "Navy House," a large, two-story building constructed on the slope of Minamiyamate with front windows that looked out over Nagasaki Harbor and the foreign settlement. It was opened by Garagin to provide an alternative to the many Russian inns of ill repute along Ōura Creek and the back streets of the foreign settlement. Garagin, his consular staff, the hospital nursing staff, 30 seamen who were patients at the Russian hospital and a number of Russian residents of Nagasaki left town on February 15, 1904. During the Russo-Japanese War, the French Consul looked after Russian interests in Nagasaki.

A Russian consulate was re-established in Nagasaki in 1906. Zinovii M. Polianovsky (Polianovskii), who previously had served as Vice-Consul in Hakodate and Seoul, was Russian Consul from March 1906 to July 1909. He was followed by Nikolai A. Rospopoff (Rospopov), a veteran of Russian diplomatic offices in Korea, Japan (Kobe) and China. [Lensen] Rospopoff was a former student of the great Russian pianist Anton Rubenstein, and was himself an accomplished pianist. Rospopoff was described during his time in Nagasaki as a fierce-looking black-bearded man from Yalta who had brought a niece with him when he came to Nagasaki in July 1909. Just prior to leaving his position in February 1912, he married his "niece" in a ceremony in Nagasaki. The two then went to Singapore, where Rospopoff was assigned as the new Consul General for the Straits Settlements. Life apparently did not work out well for the newlyweds, as, according to Herbert Poole, a friend of Rospopoff from their days in Nagasaki, his wife (who was about 40 years younger than him) later ran away with a young naval officer.

Exchanging positions with Rospopoff was Artemi/Artemy de Wywodzef (Artemii M. Vyvodtsev), who had been the Russian Consul in Singapore from 1890 to 1912. De Wywodzeff served as Russian Consul in Nagasaki from February 1912 to June 1915, although during his absence in 1914, Vitalii A. Skorodumov stepped in as acting consul. During a portion of this absence, de Wywodzeff had been detained in Germany as World War I broke out. De Wywodzeff was appointed consul general in San Francisco in June 1915. He remained in that position until December 1917, when he resigned after refusing to accept instructions from the new Bolshevik government in Russia. De Wywdozeff remained in San Francisco until his death there in January 1946 at the age of 92.

Replacing de Wywodzeff as Russian Consul in Nagasaki was Aleksander S. Maximoff (Aleksandr S. Maksimov). Maximoff served as Consul from June 1915 to February 1925. Unlike de Wywodzeff, Maximoff stayed on in his position years after the revolution in 1917. As a matter of fact, he remained the Russian Consul in Nagasaki until the consulate was closed on February 15, 1925. In March of that year, Maximoff left for Europe, but he would later return to Nagasaki.

When Maximoff was replaced by Zakhar L. Ter-Assaturoff (Ter-Asaturov) in September 1925, [Nagasaki Press, September 18, 1925] this marked the first time that the consul in Nagasaki was listed as the Soviet rather than the Russian Consul. The consulate was moved from No. 5A Minamiyamate to No. 4 Ōura. While Ter-Assaturoff was away in 1928, Maximoff again supervised affairs from No. 5A Minamiyamate, but Ter-Assaturoff was back at No. 4 Ōura by 1929. The position rotated back to Maximoff and the Minamiyamate site in 1931, and remained there until its permanent closure the following year.

Belle Vue Hotel

From its establishment in 1863 until the construction of the Nagasaki Hotel in 1898, the Belle Vue Hotel was the largest and most luxurious hotel in Nagasaki. An 1867 account by the British visitor N.B. Dennys describes the Belle Vue as "a well conducted place much frequented by visitors; at its table d'hote dinner can be had for a dollar, while for visitors the cost of living per week, everything included, amounts to twenty-one dollars. It has a very fine view over the harbour and city."

The hotel was built by at Minamiyamate No. 11A by Matthew Green, the constable to the British Consulate, and the proprietor was his wife, Mary Elizabeth. Matthew Green, who was born a British citizen at sea near Malta c.1825, was in Nagasaki by at least early 1861. He came initially without Mary and their two daughters. In May 1861, Mary wrote from Lancashire to the British Consul of Nagasaki, George Morrison, stating that she had not heard from Matthew since his departure from England. By the following year, Mary and the girls had joined Matthew in Nagasaki and the entire family was residing at Myōgyōji, which served as the early home for the British consular staff.

Matthew Green had been renting the vacant lot at Minamiyamate No. 11A since 1861. In the fall of 1862, construction began on a building on the site. The building was used initially as a temporary home of the British Consulate in July 1863. By October, Mary Green, with the assistance of the Italian C.N. Mancini, was operating the Belle Vue Hotel there. In early 1865, Mancini left the hotel to work as a confectioner in town and was replaced briefly by Edward Kettle.

In February 1866, while Matthew was away from Nagasaki, Mary was joined at the Belle Vue Hotel by her sister. Matthew returned for a few months, but by September, had departed Nagasaki permanently. By November, the Belle Vue Hotel was being operated by Mary's former employee, C.N. Mancini.

Mary Green reappeared in the records of Nagasaki in September 1868, as the proprietor of the Commercial Hotel at Ōura No. 27. She seems, however, never to have completely severed her ties with the Belle Vue. According to a February 1870 newspaper account, Mary had moved from the Belle Vue Hotel to the Commercial Hotel and was prepared to receive guests there. At the beginning of April, Mary had the Belle Vue Hotel up for sale and on April 9th, there was a notice stating that Mrs. Alexander Stewart had taken over at the Belle Vue Hotel.

Mary Green seems to have left the Commercial Hotel for Kobe in 1873. In April 1874, the lot housing the Commercial Hotel was transferred to C.N. Mancini. It was taken over briefly by Walter Graham in November of the same year, but in July 1876, it once again was transferred to Mancini. That same year, Mancini married nineteen year-old Josephine Reymond, who would help him operate first the Commercial and later the Belle Vue Hotel.

For a few years, the Belle Vue served as the home of the Great Northern Telegraph Company, before being taken over by R.H. Powers in May 1876. Neither the Commercial nor the Belle Vue Hotel survived the year, however, because both went out of business as a result of a glut of hotels in Nagasaki. Some of the contents of the Commercial Hotel were auctioned off on July 31st, and the Belle Vue closed on December 15th.

The Belle Vue did not remain closed long. In March 1877, its reopening in a few weeks was announced. In December, the bowling alleys from the old Commercial Hotel were moved to the Belle Vue Hotel. The new proprietors were none other than C.N. and Josephine Mancini.

In May of 1879, with C.N. Mancini gravely ill, Gerardus Van der Vlies came from Kobe to serve as proprietor of the Belle Vue Hotel. He held this position for about two years, after which Josephine Mancini took over once again.

C. N. Mancini died in 1880, and the following year Josephine married a British merchant in Nagasaki named Albert A.S. Drewell. Together, the couple ran the Belle Vue Hotel intermittently from 1881 to September 1888 when they moved permanently to Kobe.

In between the Drewell family, two others briefly ran the Belle Vue Hotel: F. Rischof became proprietor in May 1883, and by 1884, Van der Vlies was back again, assisted by Mrs. M. Labastie. Suffering from cancer, Van der Vlies died in November 1885 and was buried at the Ōura International Cemetery.

On October 1, 1888, R.A. van Middeldijk succeeded Drewell as proprietor of the Belle Vue Hotel. He was replaced on December 17, 1889 by Frenchman Auguste Harmand and his wife. Auguste died of chronic lung disease on July 11, 1893 at the age of fifty-nine. His wife continued to serve as proprietor of the hotel until late September 1898, when she put the Belle Vue up for sale and returned to France.

In November 1898, Bindo Bay took over operation of the Belle Vue Hotel. He and his wife Emily ran the hotel until October 1904, when they had to close it because of the trade depression brought on by the Russo-Japanese War.

The Belle Vue remained empty for two years before being reopened by Japanese entrepreneur K. Nishizaki on October 1, 1906. Backed in his venture by a number of local business people, Nishizaki's ownership ended forty years of foreign operation.

In November 1913, a young British missionary named Vincent H. Gowen visited Nagasaki on his way to China and stayed briefly in the Belle Vue Hotel. He left the following valuable, if rather derogatory, description of the iconic hotel:

Our hotel, its rose-garden still flowering forlornly in November, was a stopping-place where the lost souls of Joseph Conrad’s novels might have yawned and drunk stupidly to ease their homesickness. Everything about it was hushed, the slippered servants, the straggle of English weeklies, Tatler, Bystander, Sketch, Punch, heaped in an oppressive drawing-room, the dinner which we were to meet in many a bachelors’ mess, fried fish, cold meat, boiled potatoes, stewed fruit on custard, a meal cooked without zest and served without flavour. This dinner left nothing more but to go to bed, to sleep as we could in rooms ponderous with gigantic furniture, chairs, dressing tables, chests-of-drawers, dragged half way round the world from London in the days when Victoria was queen. Nagasaki that night was the world’s remotest corner, a stagnant backwater where nothing would ever again happen. It spoke only banishment, and made homesickness ache like a decaying tooth.

K. Nishizaki managed to keep the Belle Vue open until early 1920, when he closed the fifty-seven-year-old hotel due to the financial depression that followed World War I. The building was later torn down to make way for the residence of the Sawayama family, leaders of international business in Nagasaki after the departure of many foreign residents. Today, the site is occupied by a large modern hotel.

After the expulsion of the Portuguese in 1639, Nagasaki became the only port in Japan where foreigners enjoyed official permission to reside and conduct trade. The Dutch inhabited the artificial island of Dejima from 1641 until the opening of the country in the mid-19th century. Chinese merchants meanwhile were allowed to live wherever they wanted in the city. The concession brought about a flowering of Chinese culture in Nagasaki during the 17th century. In 1688, nearly 200 Chinese ships called at Nagasaki and several thousand Chinese merchants lived in the city, a time when only four Dutch East India Co. vessels a year were allowed to visit the port. Partly to prevent smuggling, the Tokugawa Shogunate ordered the construction of a closed-off quarter in the Jūzenji district near Dejima and confine Chinese residents there from the following year. The preponderance of Chinese trade is indicated by the fact that during the previous year. Over the following decades, Japanese residents called the Chinese Quarter the tōkan or tōjin yashiki after the outdated custom of using the character 唐（tang, or tō in Japanese) to refer to China and Chinese people.

In 1698, a fire ravaged the town of Nagasaki and destroyed Chinese cargo stored in Gotō-machi and Daikoku-machi. Nagasaki authorities and merchants joined to build a square-shaped artificial island near Dejima for the construction of warehouses to protect precious merchandise. Completed in 1702, the 3,500-tsubo island was called Shinchi, meaning “new land.”

After the opening of Japan’s doors in 1859, Chinese residents began to move out of the Chinese Quarter and inhabit Shinchi, which provided better access to commercial activity in the town and harbor. The island was incorporated into the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement in November 1868, a time when Chinese residents accounted for some 70% of the foreign population of the port. In 1869, the old Chinese Quarter was ravaged by fire, a disaster that accelerated the development of Shinchi as a living space.

Due to their longstanding prejudice and irritation over competition from Chinese merchants, few European residents expressed regret or pity over the destruction of the Chinese Quarter. Acting British consul Adolphus A. Annesley weighed in as follows on the subject in his annual report on Nagasaki affairs in 1869:

I am glad to be able to report that the large and objectionable colony of Chinese who have been living in the settlement with no authority to control them and who have proved since the opening of this port to foreign trade a source of much trouble and have been formidable and successful competitors with the foreign merchants in their commercial transactions are now placed under the strict jurisdiction of the local authorities, and many who could give no account of themselves have been compelled to return to their country. The Chinese Guild in Nagasaki, which had existed for ages and into which foreigners were not permitted to enter, was burnt down in the past year. This fire cleared a large space of ground, the rotten and filthy houses erected thereon being been nearly all consumed.” (FO 262/196/134-5)

In late 1871, representatives of the Japanese and Chinese governments sat down in Tientsin to sign the Sino-Japanese Friendship and Trade Treaty. As a result, the Chinese residents of Nagasaki gained a legal foothold in the foreign settlement and welcomed an officially designated diplomat to establish a consulate and assume duties commensurate with those of his British and American counterparts. In 1883, the Nagasaki government launched a large-scale project to dredge Nagasaki Harbor and divert Nakashima River, the result of which was the reclamation of land from the sea and the loss of both Dejima and Shinchi as islands.

As shown in Table 1, the predominance of Chinese residents in the foreign population of Nagasaki continued up to the 1920s. A detailed map of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement compiled by British authorities around the year 1900 (MFQ 1- 956-002) shows the presence of 33 small lots within the boundaries of Shinchi, many of them subdivided and connected by narrow lanes, creating a maze reminiscent of the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong. A list of residents similar to those shown in the present book has not been compiled to date.

The Chinese residents of Shinchi and other Nagasaki neighborhoods clung to their homes even after the outbreak of World War II when most other foreigners quit Japan. In the postwar period, Shinchi gained attention as Nagasaki’s Chinatown and a popular tourist venue. In 1986, the Chinese community ordered elaborate Chinese-style gates from Nagasaki’s sister-city Fuzhou and installed them at the four entranceways to the former island, where they remain to this day as symbols of the long history of Chinese-Japanese cooperation in Nagasaki.