80-year-old gift is star of Sister City banquet
By JENNETTE BARNES, Standard-Times staff writer
DAVID W. OLIVEIRA/ Standard-Times special
Carolyn Longworth of Fairhaven's Millicent Library gets a firsthand look at the replica of a Japanese water-carrier given to her by Bette Roberts, right, of the Mattapoisett Library. |
FAIRHAVEN -- The road from Japan to Fairhaven is long -- long enough that only after 81 years has a gift from Japan made its way to Fairhaven's Millicent Library.
Judy Wallace, director of the Mattapoisett Library, was cleaning out the library's attic in preparation for an auction of World War I memorabilia scheduled for Saturday. Working alongside Bette Roberts, a library trustee and curator of the Mattapoisett Historical Society, she found an odd silver cup about six inches high, with two bars extending up from the rim.
The cup was tarnished, and the inscription was hard to read, but once polished, the names were clear: To Mrs. C.S. Hamlin. The Viscount and Viscountess Ishii, 1918. And then: To the library, 1952.
After doing some research, the women learned that the viscount was the ambassador of Japan to the United States in 1918. He and the viscountess visited Mattapoisett, Fairhaven and New Bedford after Dr. Toichiro Nakahama of Japan asked him to present a Samurai sword to Fairhaven in honor of the rescue of his father, Manjiro Nakahama, by Capt. William H. Whitfield.
Capt. Whitfield's 1841 rescue of the elder Mr. Nakahama from a Pacific island became well known after Mr. Nakahama returned to New Bedford with the ship.
In October 1987, Fairhaven and New Bedford signed a "sister city" agreement with Tosashimizu, Mr. Nakahama's hometown, and numerous cultural exchanges have grown from that relationship.
The cup in the attic of the Mattapoisett Library is actually a replica of a Japanese water carrier; the bars would be used to attach it to a yoke worn across the shoulders, said Ms. Wallace, library director. It was a gift from the ambassador and his wife to Mrs. Charles S. Hamlin. The couple stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Hamlin in Mattapoisett before the presentation of the Samurai sword.
"Since the Samurai sword was stolen, the water carrier seemed better suited here (in Fairhaven) than for us to auction it off," Ms. Wallace said.
She and Ms. Roberts presented the water carrier to Carolyn Longworth, director of the Millicent Library, yesterday evening at a dinner sponsored by the Fairhaven/New Bedford-Tosashimizu Sister City Committee Inc.
The group publishes a newsletter and sponsors annual events, alternating between the Japanese buffet dinner and the Manjiro Festival. Next year's festival is scheduled for the first Saturday in October.
This story appeared on Page A3 of The Standard-Times on October 7, 2002.
|
|
