Quote:
Originally Posted by RadioKid
It’s interesting.
Is this the 17 1/2 photo of him?
I will try to get the book "The base ball and Steam Loco" later on. |
I thank you for your various posts! Sorry for not answering sooner. I decided to order a slightly used copy of the biography on Hiroshi from Japan based upon your reply and it has taken a few weeks to arrive in the U.S.
If you look at the photo in the book you can see that there is some writing on the back from Hiroshi in English and Japanese. I was able to take a picture of the photo in the book and use various filters in Photoshop to see the text more clearly. Hiroshi's hand written text on the back reads:
H. Heiraoka
Boston Highlands
Mass.
November 23, 1871
Hiroshi was born on August 5, 1856, so the image in the book shows him at 15 years 3 months 18 days.
"Boston Highlands" was another name for the Roxbury area of Boston.
The text on the back of the image corresponds to Hiroshi's location of "At Miss Boynton's, No 1 Mt Pleasant Place, Roxbury." which is found in a rare notebook in the Boston Public Library. This rare notebook lists the names and known addresses of Japanese students who were sent to the U.S. in the 1870s and who lived in Boston and several other locations in New England. This notebook was transcribed into English and Japanese by a visiting Japanese scholar and made available as a pdf document, which I've uploaded at the url below.
https://www.docdroid.net/OXIuhAj/bos...brary.pdf.html
The first part of the pdf is in Japanese and the second part is in English. Hiroshi is #10 in the list.
The first image of Hiroshi I have dates several months before the one shown in the book as he is still dressed in what appears to be a traditional haori and hakama, with a wakizashi style sword hilt visible. His hair is also drawn back into a small knot on the top of his head. This image would need to be several months earlier because time would be needed for his hair to grow to the length shown in the book. I am not sure if this photo was taken back in Japan before he left, was taken upon his arrival on the West Coast of the U.S., or when he arrived in Boston as I am not certain if he had already changed over to Western style clothing before he arrived or not.
Below is some detail from test scans of the image I've made. One can detect a sort of "X" shaped symbol on the sword band, but I am not sure if anything of substance can be deciphered due to the shiny surface of the band obscuring other characters. One small English language snippet of information from another book indicated that Horishi's father might have been a minor samurai; however, I am not sure if this was the reason he was wearing the sword as I believe some other classes of people were also permitted to wear similar swords by this time.
The second image I have shows him in a Western suit and obviously several years older. It is signed in a similar manner to the image shown in the book - he has spelled his name in English as "H. Heiraoka". This image is dated 1874 and he has indicated his location as the Manchester Locomotive Works. The rare notebook mentioned above says he was located there by January 13, 1874; however Hiroshi did not record a month or day on the back of this image so his age in the second photo I have could rage from 17 years 5 months 8 days to 18 years 4 months 26 days depending upon what day it was taken in 1874.