Republic is the “jumping-off point” for Friends of MacDonald members when visiting the Ranald MacDonald grave-site in Toroda, WA. Toroda, located along the Kettle River, is a scenic 38-minute drive north from Republic (30.0 mi. via WA-21 N and Kettle River Rd.) Republic is the home of the Ferry County Historical Society and museum (located at 15-2 N. Kean St. across from the Patterson City Park). The featured exhibits include mining and geology displays, a Native American exhibit (high-lighting Ranald MacDonald!) and an array of photos relating to ‘Turn of the Century’ Republic businesses. The museum is open Memorial Day to Labor Day, Friday-Monday from 10 am to 2 pm. Republic, the county seat of sparsely populated Ferry County in Northeast Washington, sprang into existence as a gold-mining camp in 1896 called ‘Eureka’ [or Eureka Gulch]. By 1898 it was crowded with 2,000 miners and prospectors, housed mostly in canvas tents. Several mines, including the Republic Mine, hit lucrative gold veins. The town site was laid out in 1898 and the name changed to ‘Republic’ because Postal authorities refused the name of Eureka (since a town with that name already existed in Clark County). The present name, proposed by citizens to honor the “Great Republic mining claim”, was accepted. In 1899 Ferry County split off from Stevens County and Republic became the county seat. The first mining boom lasted only until 1901, although mining continued to be the town’s main industry. Republic has endured many mining boom-and-bust cycles since, although the economy has diversified to include ranching, farming, timber, and tourism. The town’s business district was revamped in the 1980s with a “Western Victorian” theme. Today, this city of 1120 +/- residents is well-known for a different kind of “dig”: the Slagle-Stonerose Interpretive Center and Fossil Site, an entire hillside full of Eocene fossils, right next to downtown.
A High Forested Valley
For centuries, this piney, scenic valley was a junction point for Indian trails heading west over the Okanogan highlands, east over the Kettle Range, and south down the nearby San Poil River. Several trails converged almost exactly in the spot where the business district of today’s Republic now stands. A number of tribes frequented this high, forested valley, including the Colvilles. The site was originally part of the huge Colville Reservation, set aside for a number of tribes in 1872. Consequently, the area had little white presence for most of the 1800s. However, in 1891, the government purchased the entire north half of the Colville Reservation, including the future site of Republic. One of the reasons: the potential for gold strikes. On February 21, 1896, the north half was opened for mineral claims and prospectors, flush with gold fever, poured in.
Rumors of gold drew several other prospectors to the little gulch in February and March 1896, including Tom Ryan and Phil Creaser, who made claims on mines called the Republic claim and the Jim Blaine claim. Some of these claims would soon prove to have rich gold veins. News of the gold strikes flashed through the region, and by April 18, 1896, 64 men were living in the mining camp. The district was named Eureka, after the creek that ran through it. The camp was made almost entirely of tents. There was no railroad or boat transportation; everything was freighted in by horse or mule. It took another year for the first wooden building to go up, a log house, followed by a two-story wood-frame hotel in July 1897. The settlement really took off in 1898, driven by the well-publicized success of the Republic Mine. Within two years, the mine was worth $3.5 million, an imagination-stretching sum at the time. New strikes were reported almost daily. By late spring of 1898, the brand-new settlement of Republic was jammed with 2,000 people — gold prospectors and those trying to make money off of the gold prospectors. They arrived not just from Spokane and Seattle — many arrived from the gold camps of British Columbia. “Civilization” began to arrive along with the saloons and the grub shacks. In 1898, telephone wires reached Republic and the first church was opened. In 1899, a school district and fire department were established.
Early in 1899, the people of Republic decided that they no longer wanted to be part of vast Stevens County, and in January 1899, a bill was introduced in Olympia to create a new county became official on February 21, 1899. There was no dispute over which town would be named the County Seat – Republic was the only settlement of any size in Ferry County. By 1899 Republic had graduated from camp to small city. The Republic post office was doing more business than any town in Eastern Washington, except the big city of Spokane. Plenty of that outgoing mail carried the message: “There’s money to be made in Republic.” It became one of the richest mining centers in the country, and by far the most significant in Washington State history.
On June 3, 1899, a fire broke out in the pre-dawn hours. By the time the town’s fledgling fire department put the fire out, half of Republic’s business district was destroyed. Fire was to become a sad and recurring theme in the town’s history. In 1900, Republic endured a smallpox scare. People were afraid to go out in the streets; business in the stores fell off dramatically. It turned out to be only a “scare”; most cases proved to be mild and there were only a few fatalities.
Republic suffered through its first “bust” in 1901 when a number of mines closed. The town’s railroad connection — long-awaited and desperately needed — still had not arrived by 1901 – but the business climate did improve when railroad whistles were finally heard in 1902. Yet the mining boom was mostly over and wouldn’t revive for another 30 years. The town began to diversify into timber and farming — although farming was a tough proposition at Republic’s relatively high altitude, 2,569 feet, and short growing season.
Progress reached Republic slowly. The 1920s were especially rough, as they were on most Western mining towns. By 1925 the population was estimated at only about 700. The Spokesman-Review in Spokane described Republic’s past and prospects in 1929:
“When its mines boomed, Republic boomed; when the mining interests waned, the town slumped and badly – in spite of the fact that it is a County Seat, that it has dairying, stock raising and lumbering among its industries … Republic’s immediate future depends on the success of a projected *custom concentrator which will handle all of the ores of the camp”. *Believed to refer to a plant where ore is separated into values (concentrates) and rejects (fails).
During Prohibition, some citizens in the hills surrounding Republic resorted to distilling white lightning to make ends meet. One area near town came to be known as Moonshine Gulch. Republic also became a natural center for liquor smuggling from Canada. “It’s only 30 miles to the border, all of it mountains, so local people were transporting liquor by horse from Canada,” said local historian Dick Slagle. Republic had two federal enforcement officers who “made arrests every once in a while, but they probably overlooked a lot of stuff, too” (Slagle).
Another serious fire devastated the city once again, this time burning down the Ferry County Courthouse in 1934. The Works Progress Administration built a new courthouse in Art Deco style in 1936. The building remains one of the city’s landmarks.
The Great Depression came with a silver lining — actually a gold lining — for Republic. The price of gold soared to $35 an ounce in 1933 and most of the mines in the old Eureka Gulch re-opened, including the Republic Mine and one of the best-known of the recent producers, the Knob Hill, just a few miles out of town. Republic has gone through a number of mine-closing/reopening cycles. The Knob Hill mine continued to produce gold and silver and in 1956 had a payroll of 75. The opening of the state highway over Sherman Pass to Kettle Falls in 1953, meant that Republic was no longer quite so far off the beaten track.
Rough Times and Rebounds
The 1960s and 1970s were rough in Republic, as it became increasingly difficult to rely on a mining and timber economy. The population dipped to 862 in 1970. In 1973, the town nearly lost its hospital, but a spirited fund drive resulted in construction of a new modern facility. The population rebounded to 1,018 in 1980.
Two catastrophes arrived one after the other in the bleak early winter of 1983. First, the Knob Hill mine announced it would soon close and take 100 jobs with it. A week later, on December 4, 1983, a fire blazed through the town’s main street one more time. This one leveled the historic Republic Hotel, a café, a liquor store, and the offices of the weekly newspaper, the Republic News-Miner. But once again disaster became the spark for re-building. This time the merchants of Republic agreed to reinvent the business district with an old-time theme, playing off its gold boom origins. They spruced up the business district to the tune of $1 million. Thie boosted the town’s spirits as well as its tourist trade. In 1984, Hecla Mining Co., which owned the Knob Hill Mine, announced that it had found fresh new deposits. The mine wouldn’t have to close after all. In 1987, a new shaft, the Golden Promise, hit another gold ore body. In 1989, the town also built a new history museum, the Republic Historical Center, which incorporates one of the mining camp’s oldest log cabins. Yet the bust came again in the mid-1990s when Hecla closed its Knob Hill mine for good when the ore body ran out. Sawmill jobs also disappeared.
The Fossil Find
By this time, a different kind of dig had put Republic on the national map. Paleontologists discovered that Boot Hill, right in town, was chock full of fossils from the Eocene Epoch, embedded in shale. The site of Republic was part of vast, ancient lake bed, filled with plants, insects and fish. These fossils were plentiful and remarkably easy to find.
At first it was of interest mostly to scientists. “Republic is a very important site — age-wise and because the preservation is so good — for piecing together the changes that were going on in the West in ancient times,” said a paleo-botany curator from the Smithsonian Institute (Godes). Then in 1986, the city organized some public digs, in which hundreds of schoolchildren fanned out over the hill. It went so well that the city made plans to build a museum and interpretive center, which opened in 1987. Today, the Stonerose Interpretive Center and Fossil Site issues daily digging permits to thousands of visitors every year. Nearly everyone comes away with a fossil souvenir. [Stonerose reserves the right to retain any fossils with scientific significance]. Stonerose is now the center of Republic’s tourist economy. The other major tourist attractions surround the city in all directions — dozens of lakes, creeks, trails, and campgrounds in this vast, secluded region of the state.
Gold mining is a thing of the past in Republic. The Knob Hill mine never reopened. However, mining remains a significant part of the economy, since gold ore is still trucked in from another mine in the region and milled in Republic. Meanwhile, for those who take the time to look, Republic’s mining past is evident everywhere, in the abandoned shafts and tailings of what was once called Eureka Gulch. Despite a few modern structures, the town of Republic retains a flavor of the Old West along its main street, with an ancient “opry house,” now a motion picture theater, balconied and false-fronted buildings, and old-time bars untouched by the fire of 1938, which razed a section of the street.
* * * *
In part, by Jim Kershner, Posted 6/14/2009; made possible by The State of Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation
The Ferry County Historical Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which places its primary emphasis on preserving and exhibiting artifacts related to the rich history of Ferry County.
Slagle-Stonerose Fossil Site, Republic, Washington – Home of the Ferry Country Historical Society and Heritage Museum
Fifty million years ago, during the early Eocene Epoch, the present day “Okanagan Highlands” – an elevated, hilly plateau that covers parts of British Columbia, Canada and the North-Central portion of the State of Washington – lay beneath the waters of a very large ancient lake. As the lake bed slowly filled with volcanic ash and sediment, leaves, flowers, fish and insects were trapped in between layers of the resulting mud. Today that unknown ancient lake is gone, along with the unusual mix of topography and climate that produced and was home to plants and animals that have not been found together in any other known location.
Since the Stonerose dig site’s discovery by Wes Wehr and Kirk Johnson in 1977, more than 200 different species of plants and animals have been found there in fossilized form. Located on an unassuming road-cut along Knob Hill Road just north of Republic, Washington’s “city center”, the “Boot Hill Fossil Site” provides paleontologists and amateur fossil hunters alike the unprecedented opportunity to discover world-class example of Eocene plant life such as leaves belonging to the rose, birch, maple, and redwood families. The on-site facilities consist of portable toilets and a shaded picnic table. You’ll be spending lots of time in the sun, so remember to bring a sun hat, suntan lotion, and water. If you have a pair of garden knee pads, you may want to bring them along.
As with fishing and gambling, it is possible you could go home empty-handed, but it’s more likely than not that you will find several beautiful, delicate fossil specimens that you will be proud to display in your home. Finding a fossil at the Stonerose Interpretive Center just takes a bit of patience and maybe a few blisters, yet for years this rocky hillside has yielded a tremendous cache of fossilized remains, making the odds of finding one better than even. There’s a euphoric moment when you find your first fossil – suddenly a nondescript rock becomes a tangible link to the age of the dinosaurs. That spine-tingling moment doesn’t even have to come from a T-Rex or raptor claw – it can overtake you with the first signs of a 52-million-year old leaf skeleton. For some, it may be the beginning of an addicting hunt that will last a lifetime. The best part is that vacationers, rock hounds, and amateur fossil hunters can search this amazing site for their own one-of-a-kind fossils. Warning: be careful, finding fossils is addictive.
Established in 1989, the Stonerose Interpretive Center and Fossil Site is located on N. Clark Ave. on Republic, Washington’s main thoroughfare. The Boot Hill Fossil Site is a .2 miles walk or drive from the Interpretive Center. Stonerose Dig site is open daily from 8 a.m.- 4 p.m. (latest time to start digging is 3 p.m.) through Sept. 4th. Off-season hours vary. Adults $10/kids $5 – Public digging is by permit only. Visitors may retain up to three fossil pieces per person per day, though significant finds must be left at the site. The Boot Hill Fossil Site is owned by the Friends of Stonerose Fossils, a non-profit organization founded by Wes Wehr, Bert Chadick, Madeline Perry, Gary Anderson, Richard Slagle, Klifton Frazier.
In January this year, when going through e-mails on my computer (without any specific purpose other than try to clean up some old messages), I came across an email from a Founding Member of FOMdated nearly 14 years ago (Saturday, March 20, 2010 to be exact). The subject was “Ranald Stamp”. I became very curious and decided to read it again because I had been very much aware that this year – 2024 – Ranald MacDonald would be 200 years old … The following is the message:
“Hi, Many years ago I asked an FOM officer in Japan if we might get the Japanese Post Office to issue a stamp in 1994 or 1998* for one of Ranald MacDonald’s big anniversaries. [* – 1994 would have been the
100th Memorial of Ranald’s death; 1998 would have been the 150th Anniversary of Ranald’s landing on Rishiri Island – both significant dates and events.] I was told then it was impossible because government rules proscribed depicting stamps of foreigners. That may have been true then
but I was just looking at some (current) Japanese stamps. Two caught my eye. One was a double frame, 80 yen each, showing a bird’s eye view of Dejima in the center background. On the left is a Dutch sailing ship identified as Liefde, perhaps. On the right is a stylized illustration of a Dutch trader. The words “Japan- Netherland” are in the kanji caption. The other stamp of interest is an 80 yen stamp with a handsomely drawn face of Philipp Franz von Siebold, 1796-1866. [I received the letter on April 2, 1996. I had taped these two stamps into my copy of Fred Schodt’s book, Native American in the Land of the Shogun.] I may not be around in the year 2024, but if I am, I sure would like to see Ranald’s face on a stamp honoring him on his bicentennial. Maybe even a joint issue with Japan, U.S.A. and Canada! Is this an idea worth working on?”
Indeed, it was an excellent idea!
We immediately got into action after re-reading that email by contacting the Consular Office here in Portland. Council Naoto Shigehisa and I discussed the possibility of this ‘project’; he kindly provided us with the contact information of Nippon Yusei Kosha in Tokyo (formerly ‘Postal Services Agency of the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications’) which is now used for ordering new memorial stamps. We contacted the office directly by phone; the lady of the office in Tokyo and I exchanged a few telephone calls and a few e-mails regarding this. In the meantime, we were hard at work designing the “Ranald MacDonald memorial stamp” per SPECIFIC design requirements by Nippon Yusei Kosha. The last hurdle was the payment AND we already had a unanimous donor for the project. We contacted Mr. Nishiya of FOMJ in Rishiri for some help with logistics and the following, as they say, is HISTORY !
何年も前の事ですが、FOM日本支部の役員に（注：FOM創設時には、FOM日本支部が存在した。）「日本の郵便局／郵政省により、１９９４年（マクドナルド没後１００年）か１９９８年（マクドナルドの利尻島上陸１５０周年）のFOMの大きなイベントを祝う際に、マクドナルドの記念切手を発行してもらう事が出来ないだろうか？」と、問い合わせたところ、返って来た回答は「それは不可能！何故ならば日本の切手に外国人を載せる事は禁じられているから・・・。」という事だった。多分、その頃は、そうだったかもしれないが、ある日、私は日本から送られて来た一通の封筒を眺めていた。それに貼られた二枚の切手が目に入った。一枚は８０円で二重枠の中央は出島の鳥瞰図、左側にオランダの帆船、多分、リーフデ号、右側はオランダの貿易商のイラスト。漢字で日本‐阿蘭陀と書かれていた。もう一枚の興味深い切手は、８０円切手でフィリップ・フランツ・ボン・シーボルト、１７９６－１８６６の顔がハンサムに描かれていた。［私が（それらの切手が貼られた）封筒を受け取ったのは１９９６年4月２日だった。又、その2枚の記念切手を、私はFred の本 ( Native American in the Land of the Shogun) にテープで貼り付け、保管する事にした。］
“Junk” is a term that Americans still use to refer to “traditional” Asian boats. The origin of this term is
probably a transliteration* that a missionary from the Order of Friars Minor in Italy (mid 14th century), used in his writing about his voyage to China via the Indian Ocean during the Yuan dynasty; a Muslim traveler referred to ships seen in the Indian Ocean and along the Chinese coasts as “Gonku” or “Chunko.” It is believed that the word ‘Junk’ came from the Malay-Javanese word jung or ajung (hard ‘g’) which could have been derived from the Chinese word jung meaning “floating house”.
A *transliteration, put in simple terms, doesn’t tell you the meaning of a word, but it gives you an idea of how the word is pronounced in a foreign language. And now you know.
“The Hojun-Maru was not the ‘first’ but was, in fact, one of 100 known Asian drift boats that have crossed the Pacific accidentally. (The last one to arrive came ashore on the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1987, empty.)” – Daniel Wood, The Tyee
For most of us in the United States, no ocean current is better known than the Gulf Stream. It begins in the Gulf of Mexico, flows up the eastern seaboard, then crosses the Atlantic to Europe. Its warm waters help regulate temperatures across two continents. There’s an equivalent current in the western Pacific Ocean as well. It flows past Taiwan and along the eastern coast of Japan before turning toward the Pacific. It’s known as the Kuroshio Current. The name is a Japanese word that means “black stream” – because the current is much darker than the surrounding waters – the result of lower amounts of organic material at the surface.
The Kuroshio is the biggest current in the western Pacific. It begins off the coast of the Philippines, where a current that flows westward across the Pacific splits in two. The Kuroshio forms the northern branch. It travels almost 2,000 miles before it begins moving away from land. The current is strongest from May to August, with a smaller surge in winter. A recent study found that at its peak, it can be up to 50 miles wide, and flow at three or four miles per hour. Its average surface temperature is about 75 degrees Fahrenheit – several degrees warmer than the surrounding ocean. That helps keep southern Japan relatively warm. Over the centuries, the Kuroshio has carried many ships away from Japan. An extension of the current has then ferried some of them to Hawaii or even North America – a journey that began in the Gulf Stream of the Pacific. Kuroshio Current Jan. 3, 2016 By Damond Benningfield https://www.scienceandthesea.org/program/201601/kuroshio-current]]
Did Ancient Drifters ‘Discover’ British Columbia? Legends and bits of evidence tell a story of Asians arriving here long, long ago … by design or by chance. ~ Daniel Wood, 3 Apr 2012, TheTyee.ca
“As the tide creeps over the sand flats, estuaries and beaches of the Pacific Coast, from the northern Alaska Panhandle to the southern reaches of Baha California, it brings ashore the flotsam of the Pacific that – on occasion – hints at extraordinary travels and a mystery of historic proportions. Amid the kelp, in decades past, hundreds of green-glass fishing floats would arrive intact on the Vancouver Island coast, having ridden the powerful Japanese Kuroshio Current in year-long transits from Asia. On rare occasions, entire ships would arrive – like the derelict, Hokkaido-based, 54-metre squid-fishing boat located recently 260 kilometers off Haida Gwaii archipelago, part of the estimated 5 million tons of debris headed this way from the 2011Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
Even more rarely, ‘ghost ships’ would carry survivors of this slow drift, men who spoke Chinese, or Japanese. Such was the case of the Hyojun Maru (sic) that was left rudderless in a typhoon off Japan and drifted for 14 months before being washing up in 1834 on the Cape Flattery headlands. It contained three living sailors. It is, in fact, one of 100 known Asian drift boats that have crossed the Pacific by accident. (The last one to arrive came ashore on the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1987, empty.)
No one knows the source of early iron implements in the Pacific Northwest – where iron was unknown; or the origin of the 100 Asian plants and human parasites that suddenly appeared in Latin America a few millennia ago; or the recently revealed linguistic similarities between early Chinese-Tibetan and Mayan words. How did the bones of chickens – an Asian fowl from Samoa – get into a prehistoric American garbage pile? What explains the unmistakable links between Japanese and New Mexico Zuni First Peoples’ blood type, religion and language? These Asian influences appear to have arrived abruptly within the past 1,500 years.
Where does coincidence end and ‘fact’ begin? Were Asian watercraft crossing the Pacific long before Europeans crossed the Atlantic? The first clues to this supposition may have been reports from Bella Coola (Central B.C.) fishermen of glass Japanese fishing floats entangled in their nets. Could it be that the east-flowing ocean currents that were bringing Japanese fishing floats to Bella Coola also ‘accidently’ carried primitive vessels across the Pacific from Asia?
David Burley, chair of Simon Fraser University’s Department of Archeology, admits, “People moved from west to east across the Pacific. If the Polynesians hit tiny Easter Island [off Chile] – and they did – they had to hit South America. If they got to Hawaii – and they did – they got to the Pacific Northwest.” There are Ainu totem poles from northern Japan, he adds, that are almost identical to West Coast totem poles. There’s old Polynesian bark cloth that’s identical to native cedar cloth here. “
Maybe it’s time to follow the old myths, like the native myths of people arriving long, long before the appearance of the first Europeans. Like the Chinookan myths repeated to a boy named Ranald MacDonald.
The story starts when a disabled coastal trading vessel off central Japan drifted across the Pacific Ocean and “beached” on the Olympic Peninsula coast in early 1834 . . . The Hojun-Maru, with a crew of 14, set out on October 11, 1832 from the port of Onoura on the southeast coast of Japan, laden with a cargo of rice and porcelain. The ‘junk’ was caught in a typhoon, stripped of its rudder, and carried out to sea. After drifting for about 14 months across 5,000 miles of ocean, Hojun-Maru washed ashore. The precise location is unknown, but evidence points to Cape Alava, about 20 miles south of Cape Flattery, adjacent to the ancient Makah fishing village of Ozette. Left alive were the ship’s navigator, Iwakichi, age 28, and two apprentice cooks, Kyukichi, age 15, and Otokichi, age 14. Like most of the rest of the crew, they were from the village of Onoura, then a port city, now a beach resort. Their names are known in part because of a memorial erected by their fellow towns-people shortly after their ship disappeared. The three survivors promptly encountered a group of Makah seal hunters. Neither the Japanese nor the Makah would have had any idea that the other existed. Japan had been sealed off from the rest of the world for more than 200 years, and the Makah had had only limited contact with European fur traders. In any case, the Makah took command of the situation and claimed the sailors as captives.
Cape Alava on the NW coast of WA – could this be the beach where the Hojun-Maru castaway?
The Makah reportedly retrieved a number of items from the beached ship. [Fragments of ceramic bowls believed to have been on the Hojun-maru were later found on Makah land at Cape Alava.] Alexander C. Anderson, an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company, reported meeting a group of Indians at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1834 who “produced a map with some writing in Japanese characters; a string of the perforated copper coins of that country; and other convincing proofs of a shipwreck”. But the Hojun-Maru apparently broke up and sank before much could be salvaged from it.[i]
Long-time FOM members know Frederik L. Schodt as an author, translator, and conference interpreter
based in the San Francisco Bay area. Fred is also a long-time member of Friends of MacDonald – and we consider him one of our most precious “treasures”. While the following review by Don MacLaren is wonderful, I would have added the following info: first, that Fred Schodt was instrumental in introducing Tezuka’s most famous creation, “鉄腕 アトム／Tetsuwan Atomu” – Atom Boy – to the world, and second, Com. Perry’s negotiations with the Shogunate would (perhaps) not have been as smooth or successful if MacDonald’s student, Einosuke Moriyama, had not been so well-prepared (by MacDonald).
Fred has written widely on Japanese history, popular culture, and technology. His writings on manga, and his translations of them, helped trigger the current popularity of Japanese ‘comics’ in the English-speaking world, and in 2000 resulted in his being awarded the Special Category of the Asahi Shimbun’s prestigious Osamu Tezuka Culture Award. In the same year, his translation of Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama’s 1931 pioneering graphic novel, “The Four Immigrants Manga”, was selected as a finalist in Pen West USA translation award. In 2009, Fred was awarded by the Emperor of Japan, the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, for his work in helping to promote Japan’s popular culture overseas. Also, in the same year he was awarded the “Special” category of the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s 3rd International Manga Award. Fred recently (last week!) received another great review of our favorite book…
“Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan is a very important book about a fascinating man in Japanese history. I have read a lot about Japanese history, but I never came across Ranald MacDonald until I read this wonderful book by Frederik L. Schodt. I am surprised MacDonald’s story is not better known. I’m very happy, though, that someone with Schodt’s talents at research and storytelling wrote about it. MacDonald was a free spirit and a man of intense determination and courage. He went to Japan during the Edo Period, a time when foreigners were not allowed into Japan, except for a small number of Dutch who resided in a small island off Nagasaki. He could have been executed by the Japanese government. Japanese were not allowed to leave Japan at that time either. If they ventured to do so, they were at risk of being executed as well. Japan opened up to foreign trade after over 200 years of seclusion after Commodore Matthew Perry’s “Black Ships” arrived in Tokyo Bay in 1854. MacDonald arrived in Japan in 1848 and left the next year on a U.S. Navy ship that had been sent to Japan to rescue shipwrecked sailors. 15 other American sailors who had been shipwrecked and – like MacDonald – imprisoned in Japan, accompanied him. Most foreigners who reside in Japan today have taught English there, but MacDonald was the first foreigner in Japan to do so (correction… the Dutch interpreters ‘taught’ English – A.Y.) Sadly, the great impact MacDonald had on Japan and its relations with the outside world was largely forgotten. This book should change that and give him his rightful place in history.” ~Don MacLaren*
*Don MacLaren’s articles have appeared in TIME, Newsweek (International), BusinessWeek, The Japan Times, Japan Today and other publications. Between 2008 and 2014 he made numerous trips to Japan, totaling over six months. Much of this time was spent writing his observations on Japan, as well as doing freelance translating and tutoring. MacLaren has divided his time between New York City, China and Japan since July 2014. He currently works as a teacher, writer and translator.
A few days ago we received the somber news that Richard “Dick‟ Slagle, one of the original pillars in the story of Ranald MacDonald, died peacefully at home in Republic, Washington on February 9, 2021 at age 101. Those FOM members who traveled with us to Republic and then on to Toroda were lucky enough to meet Mr. Slagle in 2018 at the Ferry County Historical Society Museum in Republic, when the Friends of MacDonald celebrated our 30th anniversary. 数日前、「私の父親で、ラナルド・マクドナルドのストーリーを語る上で初期の重要人物の一人であったと思われるリチャード ‶ディック‟ スレーグルは、去る2021年2月9日にワシントン州リパブリックの自宅で101歳の人生を全う、安らかに永眠しました」という訃報を娘さんのジィ―ン・ディレーニー夫人から受け取った。FOM創立３０周年記念行事の一環としてラナルドの墓参にトロダへ行ったFOMメンバー有志一行は、その途中リパブリックへ寄り、フェリー郡歴史協会博物館で幸運にも、スレーグル翁と握手、歓談、共に記念撮影をする事ができた。それは２０１８年８月２２日の事だった。
In the last sentence of his daughter’s message to us, she wrote the following: “I do want to share, however, the one thing I’ve realized in recent days is that my Dad, Dick Slagle, had many layers of commitment, and he left us all with a huge gift of meaning, continuity, and connection. I’m very thankful for that.” As you read through this message, we know you, too, will come to appreciate her words. ジィ―ン夫人は彼女の手紙の最後に次のように述べて居る。「最近悟った事で、皆さんとシェアーしたい事ですが、 父、ディック・スレーグルは、生前この世に幾重にも及ぶ約束事や関りを持ち、それらの意義、継続性、更には多くのコネという偉大なギフトを残して行きました。私はその事に深く感謝しています。」と。 このニューズレターを読む事によって、読者の皆さんも彼女の言葉をより良く理解する事でしょう。
Dick was born to Elizabeth and J.W. “Jesse” Slagle on July 4, 1919 – joining his 9-year-old brother Maury. Younger-brother Dave was born in 1921. [The family had lost four-year-old Eleanor in 1917.] Dick’s mother, Elizabeth, came to Republic as an elementary school teacher in 1904, and his father, Jesse started the Republic Drug Store that same year. They were married in 1909. Elizabeth was from St. Clair, Missouri, and Jesse was from Franklin, North Carolina. ディックは１９１９年７月４日に、母エリザベスと父J.W.“ジェッシー”スレーグルの間に生まれ、９歳年上の兄モウリ―に加わった。 弟のデイブは1921年に生まれた。[家族は1917年に4歳の妹エレノアを失った.] ディックの母親のエリザベスは1904年に小学校の教師としてリパブリックに来て、父親のジェシーは、同じ年にリパブリックで薬局を始めた。二人は1909年に結婚。エリザベスはミズーリ州セントクレア出身で、ジェシーはノースカロライナ州フランクリン出身でした。
Dick loved Republic and all the surrounding mountains. He had many adventures with his close friend Johnny Anderson, and explored the hills to the west of town with Jack Summerville. He delivered The Spokesman-Review and knew where everyone lived in town. His first job was working for the Forest Service, and he became an Eagle Scout. Dick graduated from Republic High School in 1937. In 1942, Dick graduated from Washington State College (now WSU) in pharmacy, spent the summer on White Mountain lookout, and was soon drafted into the Army. He was stationed at Camp Grant in Salt Lake City, Utah, then Rockford, Illinois, and was transferred to Normandy, France in September of 1944 (after D-day). In France, he worked as a pharmacist in a tent hospital unit of 3000 patients near Lison, and worked at hospitals in Metz, Rouen, and Liege, Belgium. 50 years later in 1994, he was able to travel back to those locations in France with his nephew, Tom. Dick worked with his brother Maury in the Republic Drug Store for 40 years. He married his wife Helen in 1951. Jack was born in 1953, and Jean in 1955. After Helen’s death, Dick married Ruth in 1998. ディックはリパブリックとその周辺のすべての山々を愛していた。親友のジョニー・アンダーソンと多くの冒険をし、ジャック・サマービルと一緒に町の西の丘を探検した。彼はスポークスマン・レビュー紙を配達していたので、誰が町のどこに住んでいるかを知り尽くしていた。彼の最初の仕事は林野庁で、ボーイスカウトではイーグル・スカウトになった。ディックは1937年にリパブリック高校を卒業。1942年に、薬学でワシントン州立大学（現在のWSU）を卒業、夏をホワイトマウンテンの山火事見晴らし台で過ごし、その後すぐに陸軍に徴兵された。彼はユタ州ソルトレイクシティのグラント基地へ、次にイリノイ州ロックフォード基地に駐屯し、1944年9月（D-dayの後）にフランスのノルマンディーに移送された。フランスでは、リソン近郊の3000人の患者からなるテント病院で米陸軍薬剤師として働き、ルーエンのメッツとベルギーのリエージュの病院でも働いた。（５０年後の） 1994年に、ディックは甥のトムと一緒にフランスのそれらの場所に旅行で再び訪れる事ができた。ディックは兄のモーリーとリパブリックのドラッグストアで40年間働いていた。彼は1951年に妻のヘレンと結婚、息子ジャックが1953年に生まれ、娘ジィーンは1955年に生まれた。最初の妻ヘレンの死後、ディックは1998年にルースと再婚。
Dick loved to travel, enjoyed Curlew Lake, and was refreshed by getting out into the Colville National Forest, and he was dedicated to the conservation of the Kettle Range. At home, he loved to read, and was always happy to have a cat on his lap. He was a person of faith, and a member of the Presbyterian Church. He understood the value of preserving local history and was a founding member of the Ferry County Historical Society. He was the local weather observer for the National Weather Service for 50 years. ディック・スレーグル翁は旅行が大好きで、カールー湖を楽しみ、コービル国有林に行ってリフレッシュし、ケトル山脈の保全に尽くした。 家では読書が大好きで、その際、彼の膝の上に猫が居るのは常だった。 彼は信心深く、長老派教会の信者だった。 彼は地元の歴史を保存することの価値を理解し、フェリー郡歴史協会創設メンバーの一人だった。 スレーグル翁は約50年間、国立気象庁の地元の気象観測者でも在った。
In lieu of flowers, FOM suggests a contribution may be made to:
I first met Mr. Akira Yoshimura in the autumn of 1988 at a meeting of the Friends of MacDonald in Tokyo. I had read Umi No Sairei (Festival of the Sea) and was fascinated to hear him speak of the countless trips he had made to Nagasaki to gather materials for that book. I suggested that I thought it would be a good idea to translate this work into English. There were several reasons for this. First of all, putting the text into English would make it available to an extended audience. Secondly, at that time the only account of Ranald MacDonald’s adventure in Japan was his autobiography – which was necessarily limited to what MacDonald himself had personally seen and experienced. Festival of the Sea provides a much broader context for MacDonald’s story by showing us how it appeared from a Japanese perspective. Yoshimura’s work also concludes with an extended account of the career of Moriyama Einosuke, MacDonald’s star “pupil”. This establishes the true value and legacy of MacDonald’s experience in a way that Ranald MacDonald himself never knew.
After that initial meeting with Mr. Yoshimura, time passed and in 1997 Jo Ann Roe published Ranald MacDonald: Pacific Rim Adventurer, which began to put MacDonald’s experience into a broader context. In 2003 Frederik L. Schodt published Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan. In this work, he provided much more context and relied on numerous Japanese sources including Umi no Sairei, but still, we see the story primarily from Macdonald’s perspective. I felt that Yoshimura’s work provided an important counterpoint perspective, so I undertook to make a translation. I wrote to Mr. Yoshimura, and with his encouragement, I did make a rough translation, but life intervened and I never did accomplish more than a rough draft. Then Mr. Yoshimura died and the project languished. In 2017, however, Mr. Sekikawa Natsuo invited me to participate in a symposium at the Yoshimura Akira Memorial Library. I was unable to do so, but Mr. Sekikawa’s enthusiasm inspired me to go back and revise my earlier draft of the translation and bring it to completion.
Yoshimura Akira was born into a merchant family in the downtown (Nippori) section of Tokyo. From an early age, however, he was more interested in literature than in business. Through his college years and beyond he wrote and published stories, and in the late 1950s and 60s several of his works were nominated for the prestigious Akutagawa Prize [a Japanese literary prize awarded semiannually for the best work of fiction by a promising new Japanese writer]. Although he was never awarded that prize, his reputation was firmly established in 1966 at the age of thirty-nine with the publication of The Battleship Musashi (Senkan Musashi). In this work he pioneered a new genre, what has come to be called “documentary fiction”. He collected detailed information from historical records and from interviews with people involved to explain the significance of the construction of the Battleship Musashi. In the process of describing the building of the ship, he also created an essay on the nature of modern war. His insight was that, engaged in modern, all-out war, the Japanese people had to use everything in their power to try to prevail. The symbol for that effort was the Battleship Musashi. In the end, of course, it was a failed effort, but nevertheless it was a valiant and committed effort which reflected the dedication and commitment of the Japanese people as a nation. That was what Yoshimura celebrated in his work.
Although Yoshimura continued to write fiction with contemporary settings, he is primarily known for his history-based documentary fiction, and from 1980 on his interest turned to late Edo-period Japan. Since he could not interview the participants in the events he dealt with, he thoroughly researched the diaries, letters, and other documents pertaining to his subject. He made repeated trips to the site where events took place to the point where he could even actually describe the weather at the time and place certain events occurred. We might way that even though he was writing fiction, he included as little fiction as possible in his works. Yoshimura hinted at a possible reason for this: in a middle school composition class, he once wrote an essay entitled “My Father’s Hand” – and although his father was alive and well at the time, in the essay he described his father’s body laid out in a coffin. On the back of his father’s hand was a large mole, which he caressed with his fingertips. He wrote that this was the first time he had experienced the sensation of touching his father’s skin – as the eighth of none sons his father had never taken him by the hand and he had therefore never had the opportunity to touch his father’s skin. Yoshimura’s teacher thought this was an excellent essay and read it aloud to the class, but when his father read it he was furious, shouting, “You have written something here which has no basis in fact!” Perhaps it was from this experience that Yoshimura showed such devotion to getting the ‘facts’ right.
In his historical fiction, Yoshimura often wrote about those who had been overlooked in historical accounts. Frederik Schodt has described Ranald MacDonald as “a man who did an extraordinary thing and then fell through the cracks of history”. In this sense MacDonald was a prime subject for Yoshimura’s pen. Moriyama Einosuke, who figures prominently in Festival of the Sea, is another case in point. Having proven himself as Japan’s most accomplished interpreter of English, Moriyama played a crucial role in crafting the Bafuku’s (Shogunate) first treaties with all the other countries of the world. Moriyama negotiated with Commodore Perry, and later with Townsend Harris, but he also negotiated treaties with all the other European countries that demanded a role in the opening of Japan. In the 1850s and 1860s, Moriyama was virtually the only person who knew both sides of the equation – what a treaty said in English and what it said in Japanese. Both sides relied on him to ensure that they agreed on the same things. He continued with his work under enormous pressure, for truly the destiny of the Japanese Nation was on his shoulders. Once the new Meiji government took power, Moriyama disappeared from sight until Yoshimura redirected our attention to him. Moriyama’s disappearance from the scene was only partly due to the fact that the new Meiji government wanted its own interpreters, not those of the old Tokugawa government. It was also the case that Moriyama was simply burned out by the time the regime change too place. Some historians have held Moriyama responsible, unfairly in my opinion, of having led Japan to agree to ‘unequal treaties’. Indeed, those treaties he helped negotiate were unequal, but they also protected japan from being colonized by one or more of the Great powers, yet the indignity of the treaties rankled and some blamed Moriyama. So for many reasons Moriyama had been largely ignored by historians until Yoshimura illuminated his crucial role in the opening of Japan.
We see something similar in the case of Hori Tatsunosuke, another interpreter and contemporary of Moriyama, about whom Yoshimura wrote in his historical novel Kurofune. Hori is known to history as the first Japanese to have a meaningful encounter with Commodore Perry’s squadron. He stepped aboard the Susquehanna and uttered three words in English: “I speak Dutch.” Hori was recognized as a man of competence as an interpreter of Dutch, but he had the ill luck to be stationed in Edo during the winter of 1848-49 and so was unable to receive tutelage in English from Ranald MacDonald. Throughout his career he was overshadowed by Moriyama who, thanks to MacDonald, had a greater facility in Spoken English and was able to consort more comfortably with foreigners. So, Hori experienced frustration and embarrassment, but he persevered, and in the end was able to make the transition to the new Meiji government which Moriyama did not (could not) do. And Hori compiled a Japanese-English dictionary – which Moriyama had begun to do but had not completed. Hori also became a respected teacher of English, an endeavor Moriyama rarely had time for. In Yoshimura’s telling, perseverance paid off for Hori and in his own way had made a meaningful and lasting contribution to the opening of Japan. But he, too, has been largely forgotten. Yoshimura recognized this and clarified Hori’s role in history.
One of the hallmarks of Yoshimura’s historical fiction is the celebration of those forgotten figures who, through their dedication and perseverance, have made meaningful and lasting contributions. Certainly we see this in Festival of the Sea where Ranald MacDonald had the courage and determination to wade ashore alone in a country where foreigners were forbidden to set foot, and in Moriyama, who stood exposed and alone as Japan’s spokesman to the other nations of the world. These were remarkable men who did remarkable things, and Yoshimura Akira was the bard who brought their stories to life. ~ S.K.
*** Associate Professor Emeritus, Japanese Literature; Asian Studies, East Asian Languages. Stephan Kohl has published extensively on Japanese literature.
Last year – 2018 – was quite a year for Friends of MacDonald. Not only did FOM as a committee of the Clatsop County Historical Society reach its 30th year of existence, the “Ranald MacDonald Short-term Study Abroad Program” at Rishiri high school also reached its sixth year in 2018. Although times and members change, I think I can speak for everyone in wishing that both organizations remain healthy and continue to grow for many more decades.
Due to the large number of brain cells that were devoted to organizing and then accomplishing the Friends of MacDonald 30th Anniversary Luncheon, Annual Meeting and Group Excursion to the northern reaches of Washington State to memorialize our organization with a visit to Ranald’s last resting place we realized that we postponed reporting another successful visitation by students from Rishiri high school to Astoria, Oregon, and to Spokane and Toroda, Washington in 2017. We will remedy that omission in this, the first issue of the Friends of MacDonald Newsletter as it enters its 31st year of ‘publication’ – and will continue our report on the 2018 students in the next (to be published shortly, we hope and intend).
We went into some detail in Gates Ajar Vol. 30, No. 1 that was published in March of 2018 about our visit to Rishiri High School in December of 2017, and briefly introduced Jin Hiranuma and Mako Sato, the two Rishiri students who visited Astoria and points beyond in the autumn of 2017, but regretfully overlooked the in-depth report that we have given other students from Rishiri. Jin and Mako will both graduate from high school in April 2019 and are planning on attending university in Japan. We have no doubt whatsoever that they will be successful in anything they try.
I first met Mr. Akira Yoshimura in the autumn of 1988 at a meeting of the Friends of MacDonald in Tokyo. I had read Umi No Sairei (Festival of the Sea) and was fascinated to hear him speak of the countless trips he had made to Nagasaki to gather materials for that book. I suggested that I thought it would be a good idea to translate this work into English. There were several reasons for this. First of all, putting the text into English would make it available to an extended audience. Secondly, at that time the only account of Ranald MacDonald’s adventure in Japan was his autobiography – which was necessarily limited to what MacDonald himself had personally seen and experienced. Festival of the Sea provides a much broader context for MacDonald’s story by showing us how it appeared from a Japanese perspective. Yoshimura’s work also concludes with an extended account of the career of Moriyama Einosuke, MacDonald’s star “pupil”. This establishes the true value and legacy of MacDonald’s experience in a way that Ranald MacDonald himself never knew.