r *Jt-* — . - - , -

OLD CITY HALL, HOME OF BOCA RATON HISTORICAL SOCIETYJeanne Nixon Baur, Artist

A report to the membership of

Boca Raton Historical Society, Inc.

P.O. Box 1113 • Boca Raton, Florida 33432

Board of TrusteesBoca Raton Historical Society, Inc.

Clement C. Winke, ChairmanDonald WCurlJ Herman DanceMrs David B DickensonMrs Myrtle Butts FlemingMr John D GirardMrs Richard HaberRobert I MacLaren II

Mrs Gilbert J Pomar jrMrs Dorn Lee Redd

Charles B SchwadererJohn Shuff

Mrs Stephen F SnyderMrs Sara Jane Sylvia

Richard McCusker

Mrs. George R. Canty, jr, PresidentMrs Bradley Middlebrook II, First Vice President

Mrs G Duncan Lott III, Second Vice PresidentMrs Richard D Notes, Recording Secretary

Mrs Michael W O'Brien, TreasurerMrs Howard McCall, Archivist

David AsheCharles H Goby

Honorary TrusteesRobert D Tylander

Mrs L Bert Stephens

al|Sin?r flap? raSPRING 1985 VOL. XI I I NO. 3

Yamato and Morikami

The Story of the Japanese Colonyand Some of I ts Settlers

Yamato Road is the only visible remindertoday of the once thriving Japanese colony inBoca Raton. A comprehensive his tory of theJapanese sett lement and i t s re la t ion to thepopular Morikami Museum in Delray Beach hasnot previously appeared in the Spanish RiverPapers. The present paper is an attempt toset forth in chronological order what can begathered from the archives of the Boca RatonHis tor ica l Society, publications by theMorikami.staff, and the writer's own researchin the area.

Although construction of Flagler's r a i l -road made it easy to get from Jacksonville toMiami, s e t t l e r s were slow to fo l low.Flagler's agent in Boca Raton, Captain ThomasM. Rickards , came here o r i g i n a l l y as asurveyor for the canal company. Rickardsbought fifty acres in 1884 south of PalmettoRoad and east of the Intracoastal. Under thearrangement wi th the S t a t e of Flor ida ,Flagler received 8,000 acres for every mileof railroad he built . The acreage granted tothe rai lroad in th is way has been est imatedto total between one and two million acres.

James E. Ingraham, one of F lag le r ' st rusted a s s i s t an t s was placed in completecharge of the Florida East Coast's land de-partment. This was incorporated in 1896 asthe Model Land Company and controlled thehuge tracts of land from Jacksonville to KeyWest. In James Ingraham, Flagler had a wide-

By Geoffrey Lynfield

ranging assistant of great energy and enter-prise. In 1892 Ingraham made the first topo-graphical reconnaissance of the Evergladesand the adjacent coast line. The road lead-ing from Florida City to Flamingo is actuallycalled Ingraham Highway. At Cape Sable thereis six-mile-long Lake Ingraham. Many Ever-glades canals date back to this period asIngraham tried to drain the land for agr i -cultural use.

The Model Land Company provided agr i -cultural assistance and its experts gave muchhelp to the early se t t l e r s in the pract icaldevelopment of the East Coast country. Itwas in this way that Jo Sakai s tar ted tocorrespond with James Ingraham. The BocaRaton Historical Society recently obtainedthis correspondence from Tom Rickards1 grand-son who now lives in North Carolina.

Jo Sakai was born in 1874 in Miyazu,Japan. After graduating from Doshisha Uni-versity, Kyoto, this enterprising young mancame to the United States at the turn of thecentury. In 1903 Sakai graduated from NewYork Univers i ty. He died from tuberculosisin 1923 in Ashevi l ie , North Carol ina at 51-years of age, and is buried at Wood lawnCemetery, West Palm Beach. Apart from thisnot a great deal is known of Jo Sakai'sorigin or how he f i rs t got the idea to es t -ablish an agricultural colony for Japanesenationals. He may have come across some ofthe publications of the State Bureau of Im-migration.

Following the Civil War, Florida badlyneeded settlers to populate countless acresof unused land. Dade County up to 1909covered no less than 7,200 square miles fromthe St. Lucie River to the Keys. In 1880,the county had a population of only 275whites. By the 1890 Census this had in-creased to 726. In 1900, West Palm Beach hada population of 564. Only half A dozenfamilies had settled in the Boca Raton area.

When Jo Sakai f i r s t contacted the Bureau ofImmigration in 1903, Tom Rickards was tryingto attract growers of oranges and pineappleswho would pay $100 for five acres of raw landwhich s t i l l had to be cleared.

Rickards, Boca Raton's f i r s t developer,surveyed and subdivided about 500 acres of 'land he had bought since his a r r iva l . In1897 he sent out a flyer advertising the lotsin ten-acre-tracts at twenty dollars an acre.There is a map on the back of the flyershowing Lake Wyman and Lake Boca Raton, thepavilion reef, and the Florida East CoastRailroad tracks. The flyer painted an a t -tractive picture of the area to the prospect-ive buyer:

No better location for pineappleculture in the state, consideringtransportation, quality of soil ,and freedom from cold. In sight ofthe Ocean, 40 minutes by rail fromthe big hotels with their electriclights, water works, paved streets,bicycle paths and extreme modernimprovements.

Captain Rickards had a fine sense for landvalues and set the scene for later propertyappreciation in downtown Boca Raton.

Thomas Gregersen and Larry Rosensweighave suggested in a recent paper "Establish-ment of the Yamato Colony 1903 - July 1905"that James Ingraham of the Model Land Companyasked a college friend on the faculty of NewYork University to put him into contact witha dependable Japanese who might be interestedin heading up a Florida colonization project.One such proposal had been made by ProfessorWarren Clark who had actual ly been to Japanin the 1870s.

Jo Sakai arrived in Jacksonville towardsthe end of November 1903 armed with a letterof introduction from the Dean of New YorkUnive r s i ty School of Finance. He metIngraham and Rickards and within weeks of his

arr iva l had signed an agreement with theModel Land Company to locate the proposedcolony in the Boca Raton a rea . FrankCheseboro has a diary entry dated December25, 1903 "A Jap here at Rickards1 looking fora tract of land for colony." On December 27,1903 Mr. Cheseboro noted "Mr. Curry and theJap leaving on the train." (Spani sh RiverPapers, October 1977). "Mr. Curry" wasGeorge Graham Curr ie, a Canadian lawyer anddeveloper who set t led in West Palm Beacharound the time of its incorporation in 1894.Currie later became Mayor of West Palm Beachand was a c lose fr iend of the Rickardsfamily.

Jo Sakai, after inspecting land in var-ious par ts of the s ta te , eventually boughtone thousand acres from James Ingraham, act-ing for the Model Land Company. Ingraham hadalso been active along other par ts of theFlorida rai l road. By 1895 settlements hadbeen established in Linton ( later renamedDelray and then Delray Beach) and" Boynton.Boynton had as many as seventy s e t t l e r s by1897 — many of Finnish extract ion - - andover one hundred acres were being cultivated.Linton had about 170 s e t t l e r s most of whomowned substantial acreage.

International farming colonies had alsobeen established during this period south ofFort Lauderdale. At Hallandale a group ofSwedish Lutherans and some Dutch had settled.The town was originally to be called Hoi Ian-dale but the first vowel was somehow changed.This community was incorporated in 1927. Inpresent-day Dania, a group called the DanishBrotherhood from Wisconsin started to ra isetomatoes in 1896 and named the i r townModello, after the Model Land Company. Thisname was la ter dropped to avoid confusionwith another Modello township near Homestead.The Danes proved to be very successful. By1908, the community had grown to over a thou-sand and produced over three hundred t ra in

carloads of tomatoes and fifty cars of pine-apples.

The contract between Ingraham and Sakais t ipulated that the Japanese were to beginfarming not later than August 1904. Thecolonists would work for a period of aboutone year under the guidance of Tom Rickardswho was to oversee their experimental crop.The Model Land Company was to cover the costof the equipment and provide housing. Thiswas to be repaid once the Japanese colonybegan turning a profit.

The beginning of Sakai's project wasthus most encouraging as he met a generalclimate of wil l ingness among business andp o l i t i c a l c i r c l e s to es tabl ish a Japanesecolony in the south of the s t a t e . JamesIngraham also had received favorable reportsof Japanese successes in working the land inCalifornia. Generally i t was fel t that theJapanese were born farmers who would inaugur-ate new methods of cul t ivat ing f ru i t s andvegetables not previously grown in Florida.As it turned out later, the men Sakai broughtover from Japan were not trained farmers butinexperienced adventurous young bachelors intheir twenties and t h i r t i e s — some withUniversity degrees - - who were wi l l ing towork hard.

It has been possible to pin-point theexact date on which Sakai departed fromFlorida. In the issue of December 31, 1903,the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union pub-lished an interview just prior to Sakai'sdeparture. In the Morikami Newsletter July1984 there is a reproduction of the frontpage of this paper. In the interview Sakai"brimmed with enthusiasm" as he outlined inambitious terms how he proposed to settle notonly the Boca Raton si te but all the acreageoffered him through the s t a t e . Sakai thenbrief ly v is i ted Washington where he metofficials of the U.S. Department of Agricul-

ture and the Bureau of Immigration. In Jan-uary 1904, Jo Sakai was back in New York tobegin the next phase of the project , that ofgathering colonists to s e t t l e the land. Hequickly ran into difficulties.

The first two recruits contacted in NewYork, who were to begin prac t ica l farmingexperience under Capt. Rickards, never ar-rived in Florida but headed instead for Cali-fornia. However, Sakai found a replacement,Nobuj i Inoue, a relative, arrived in February1904 to work in the tomato fields underRickards's supervision. He took his mealswith the Rickards family and was so taken bythe instructions and treatment which he re-ceived, that he refused payment of his firstwages.

Sakai left for Japan in March 1904 andproceeded to his hometown of Miyazu (now thes i s t e r c i ty of Delray Beach) northwest ofKyoto. He immediately got busy with pros-pective investors and sponsors but ran intored tape as a report had to be submitted tothe Japanese Foreign Ministry. Its permis-sion had to be obtained before the group ofpioneers could leave Japan.

One influential sponsor interested inSakai's project was Count Masakuni Okudaira,an American university graduate and youngerbrother of a provincial Lord. George SukejiMorikami was sponsored in this way in 1906 byManzaburo Oki, a silk merchant. The sponsorpaid passage to Amer i ca and 1iv ing expensesin return for three years of labor in thesponsor's f ie lds . At the end of this periodthe immigrant received a cash bonus of $500which could then be used to acquire land inthe colony. As we sha l l see l a t e r ,Morikami's sponsor died from typhoid in 1907and George found that he had worked fornothing.

By April 1904, Sakai was s t i l l in Japanrunning from one place to another. He se-cured a number of recrui ts among re la t ives

and friends in the Miyazu area. Exit permitsand passports were required. Sakai found theForeign Ministry very difficult to deal with,par t ly as the resul t of the Russo-JapaneseWar of 1904-1905 (to be won by Japan). Thisled Sakai to explore other routes.

Rather than dealing himself with theForeign Ministry and bringing the s e t t l e r sover as a group, Sakai had the colonis tsrepresent themselves as students wishing tostudy in America. This decept ion worked aslong as each individual obtained his ownpassport and disguised his true intent ions.Thus the f i r s t two "students" arrived inFlorida by August 1904 as specified in theoriginal contract. A larger body of eightfollowed in November and another group cametwo weeks la ter . Henry Flagler gave thesemen free passage from California as an in-ducement to s e t t l e here. By the end ofDecember 1904, Sakai had a to ta l of twelvecolonists in place. Sakai himself returnedwith the November group. Ingraham arrangedfor Capt. Rickards to meet the newcomers inJacksonville and personally escort them toBoca Raton.

Di f f i cu l t i e s soon arose between thecolonists and Ingraham. The land west ofBoca Raton, which Sakai had inspected on hisprevious v i s i t , according to Ingraham, wasnot sufficiently drained and s t i l l too wet tocultivate. Rickards, however, was willing torent the Japanese acreage on favorable termsto raise an experimental crop under his d i -rection, thus obtaining experience whileearning a living from the crop. They wouldthus, at the beginning at least , have beentenant farmers rather than land owners work-ing their own fields.

The Japanese were an educated group andit could not have escaped their a t t en t ionthat this was a disadvantageous arrangement.

Florida law actually made generous provisionsfor homesteaders who could acquire full t i t l eto as much as 160 acres per family, providedthey worked the land for five years, built ahomestead and filed certain proofs.

The s e t t l e r s had christened their land"Yamato", an ancient name for Japan. InJapanese this is written with two old Chinesecharacters meaning "great" and "harmony".The name "Yamato" is a favorite with Japaneseimmigrants. Two other Japanese colonies withthat name were formed in the United States;one at Livingston, California, near SanFrancisco and the other near Brownsville,Texas. Although the Brownsville settlementfai led after World War I. The CalifornianYamato colony has been highly successful andexis t s today as the Livingston Farmers As-sociation (see Hosokawa, Nisei: The QuietAmericans (New York 1969).

Init ial farming was slow and difficult.No more than one acre a season could becleared by even the most hard working se t -t l e r s using grubbing hoe, rake, and shovel.They had no t rac tors and a l l work had to bedone by hand. The harsh tropical climateadded to the discomfort of the immigrants.Rains flooded the fields and ruined crops.Mosquitoes and flies forced everyone to wearhead-nets during the summer months.

Accommodations were simple and consistedof crude shacks built from native pine trees.The set t lers had l i t t l e furniture, plumbing,or other comforts. There was no electricity.Air conditioning, radio and T.V. obviouslywere not available yet. The roads were poorand work took up most of the men's time. At r i p to the store in Boca Ratone or Lintonseveral mi les away was a special event.

The Homeseeker (July 1908) reported oneoccasion when J. Sakai and T. Ishibashi fromYamato came to West Palm Beach on bicycles totransact business at the local s tores . The

Del ray News would record in its gossip columnsome of the movements of the Yamato residentsand their v i s i t s to Delray. Thus the issuefor Friday, August 24, 1923, included thefollowing:

YAMA.TO

Mr. Y. Mory was a visitor to DelrayMonday. Mr. Oscar Kobayaski andMrs. Yoshida drove over to WestPalm Beach and brought back Mrs.Kobayaski and baby daughter lastMonday.

Mr. Komayai and Mrs. Sakaiand two daughters have gone toNorth Carolina to be with Mr. Sakaiwho is reported to be improving.

This news item turned out to be undulyoptimistic as Jo Sakai had died on August21st at Asheville, N.C.

Mr. D.I. Oeshi was a business visitorto Delray Saturday. Papa Kobayaskiwas in Delray Tuesday. Messrs. Shiotaand Yamauchi were visitors to DelrayTuesday.

Some of the settlers became disgruntledbecause of these harsh conditions and in 1905several broke away. The settlement howeverseemed to prosper and by 1907 the FBC Railwayhad established a station at Yamato where51st Street now crosses the tracks.

The Yamato area had had a Post Officesince 1902. According to Bradbury'sChronology of Flor ida Post Of f i ces the name

of the original office was "Wyman," but thiswas changed to Yamato in August 1907. InJune 1919 the "Yamato" o f f i ce was b r i e f l yc losed and merged wi th the "Bocaratone" of-f i ce which dates back to 1899- The Yamatos e t t l e r s protested and although their officewas reopened in October 1920, i t was c losedfor good on May 23, 1925.

The name "Wyman" of the or ig inal office

YAMATO YOUNGSTERS PHOTOGRAPHED BY THEIRTEACHER AT THE YAMATO SOEOLKXJSE, BLY DAVIS,1922. Left to r i g h t : Rank Kkamiya, WalterSmith, Rokuo Kamiya, Harry Smith.

is a m a t t e r of some local c u r i o s i t y . Veryl i t t l e is known about the origin of Wyman. Amap drawn in 1896 by Thomas Richards shows aLake Wyman, but how th is name was derived isu n c l e a r . There may be a connect ion w i t h aProfessor Jef f r ies Wyman, f i r s t d i rec tor ofthe Peabody Museum at Harvard, who made anumber of e x p l o r a t o r y v i s i t s to F l o r i d a inthe 1866-1874 pe r iod . In 1978 the PeabodyMuseum issued a number of l e t t e r s to his sonw r i t t e n dur ing t h i s pe r iod under the t i t l eDear Je f f i e . Professor Wyman mentions placessuch as Blue Spring near Ocala, Hibernia, OldTown in Dixie County, and Bethlehem. RalphM. Munroe in The Commodore's Story, p. 137,ment ions a "Wyman" as a member of a CoastSurvey p a r t y whose camp he had seen atHil lsboro on Christmas Eve 1883. I t is pos-s i b l e t h e r e f o r e tha t Lake Wyman was nameda f t e r P ro fe s so r Wyman, or he h imsel f mighthave so named the lake , There i 0 no r e f e r -ence to Wyman in Allen Morris1 F lor ida PlaceNames (1974) nor does t h i s s tandard workmention Yamato or Modello.

In 1906 Sada Sakai , Jo Sakai ' s wi fe andthe colony 's f i r s t woman, a r r i v e d . In 1909their daughter became the f i r s t child born inthe colony. The Sakais a l t o g e t h e r had f ivedaughters who re tu rned to Japan w i t h t h e i rmother in 1924 shor t ly after Jo Sakai 'sdeath. Other se t t le rs sent back to Japan fortheir wives and began to raise families. Asthese fami 1 ies grew, the old shacks becameinadequate and new and bigger houses wereb u i l t . The Tropical Sun (November 3, 1906)reported: "There are at present about f i f t yacres set in pineapple alone, to say nothingof the acreage devoted to other f ru i t s andvegetables . . . . Eight houses have beenbuilt recently, and last week seven newcomersarrived from far-away Japan."

The situation in which George Morikamifound himself has been described in thea r t i c l e by George F. Pozzetta and Harry A.

Kersey, J r . "Yamato Colony: A JapanesePresence in South Florida" published inTequesta (1976). Pozzetta and Kersey inter-viewed George Morikami in his t ra i le r parkedin a f ie ld at the end of Carter Road in westDelray. Morikami described the circumstancesunder which he came to th is country and h isf i rs t venture into independent farming.

George Morikami, who arrived in 1906with a three-year contract, had bad luck whenMr. Oki, his sponsor, died in a typhoidepidemic in 1907. Although he was not r e -quired to complete his contract , he neverreceived h is bonus. Morikami soon left theYamato colony to s t r ike out on h i s own withthe l i t t l e money he had saved. He s t i l lspoke practically no English.

Morikami soon rea l ized that to survivehe had to acquire fluency in English. Anadvertisement he placed in a local paperbrought a response from an Eau Gal l i e sh ip-building family which was willing to pay himten do l la r s a month plus room and board.However, under th is arrangement George wasexpected to put in long hours of back-break-ing work and had actually l i t t l e opportunityof learning English.

After a month, George went to live withthe Ohis, a Japanese family. The senior Ohihad been a member of the Yamato Colony buthad lef t in 1906. George enrol led in f i f thgrade in the Eau Gal lie public school in 1910(he was then 24 years old) for a year un t i lhe became more fluent in reading and writingEnglish.

In Yamato, i n i t i a l l y the farmers grewpineapples. But the land was not per fec t lysuited for that crop. Farmers in Cuba couldgrow and sell pineapples for less. In 1908,the Japanese pineapple fields were struck bya b l igh t and product ion that year was badlyreduced. So the Yamato group switched mostof their e f for ts to growing winter vege-tables, such as tomatoes, beans, and onions.

These vegetables grown at Yamato were shippedall over the United States and as far away asAlaska.

Pineapples had given way to tomatoes asthe s tap le commercial, crop when Morikamireturned to the Japanese community. A l i t t l el a t e r , a friend let him have the use of halfan acre in Delray's Germantown area. Georgemanaged to get grocer ies and f e r t i l i z e r oncredit from a local store, promising to repaywhen the crop was ready. In sp i te of a lotof rain, George harvested eighty-four bushelsof tomatoes during that year and when the1912 season was over, he had $1,000 prof i tafter paying a l l expenses.

The Japanese s e t t l e r s in Yamato wererather isolated and their children had l i t t l eopportunity to learn English. In 1908, thef i r s t school had been s t a r t ed in Boca Ratonin Long's packing house near the intersectionof South Dixie Highway and South SecondSt ree t . The f i r s t schoolmaster, ProfessorRehbinder, used to r ide up to Yamato a f te rschool to hold p r iva te evening c lasses inEnglish for the Japanese co lon i s t s . In ashort t ime, the school was moved to a newschoolhouse where the pol ice s t a t i on nowstands, but th i s was almost two and a halfmiles from Yamato.

Frank Cheseboro's diary in the posses-sion of the Boca Raton Historical Society hasthe following e n t r i e s : "August 17, 1914:Lawrence Gould began the school." "August30: Lawrence Gould came here to board.""Sept. 30: Got kids for Lawrence at Yamato inauto." Lawrence M. Gould served as teacherat the Boca Raton Public School from the fal lof 1914 to the end of the 1916 school year.There is a cheerful picture in the collectionof the Boca Raton Historical Society showingLawrence Gould with a s e t t l e r from Yamato.This young man is Mr. Susumu ("Oscar")Kobayashi who died in 1975. In 1922, Susumureturned to Japan to marry and shortly after

returned to his farm at Yamato.After World War I, Gould obtained a

doctor 's degree in glacia l geology from theUniversity of Michigan. He eventually becamesecond-in-command of the Byrd Antarct icaExpedition of 1928-30. His work was rewardedwith the Congressional Gold Medal. Gouldla t e r became president of Car leton College,Northfield, Minnesota. He retired in Tucson,Arizona where he had been professor of geo-logical sciences at the University of Arizonaun t i l 1962.

When approached severa l years ago,Laurence Gould remembered l i t t l e about histime in Boca Raton. In a l e t t e r dated May10, 1979 to the Morikami Museum he wrote:

I kept no diary or record of any sortof my two years in Boca Raton. I hadonly one brief contact with Yamatocolony. I was approached One sumnerto see if I could work for the Colonyas time keeper, but nothing came ofi t . I haven't the vaguest idea as towhy the colony deteriorated nor do Iremember any details of the physicallayout.

The Yamato colony later had i t s own schoolwith an American teacher, a Mrs. HildrethGay. The building later became the home ofShobi Kamikama. Imogene Alice Gates, whowas born in Boca Raton at the end of WorldWar I, has recorded her chi ldhood memories inThe Spanish River Papers October 1975 pub-lished by the Boca Raton Historical Society:

My best friend was Masuko Kamiya, aJapanese gi r l , who lived in Yamato.Her family lived as they had in Japan.At night they slept on pads; theyhad no beds. They also ate with chop-

sticks. . . . We used to eat r ice,seaweed, fish and other items I can'teven begin to describe. Masuko . . .had many brothers and sisters and herparents were wonderful to me. I learn-ed much from Masuko that I couldn'thave learned from anyone else. Theirhouse was on s t i l t s like al l othersouthern houses. Masuko's father wasa farmer. All the Japanese familiesfarmed and they were excellent ati t .

Masuko Kamiya went to Cal i fornia and wass t i l l l iving last year in the town of Vista .

Another s is ter , Mishi Kamiya, the thirdsurviving child to be born in Yamato on April22, 1911 died as recently as March 1, 1984 atGeorgetown University Hospital.

Mishi (also known as "Missy") Kamiyaattended the one-room schoolhouse in Yamatount i l i t s closing in 1922. Thereafter sheand the o ther Yamato ch i ld r en attendedelementary school in Boca Raton, making thet r ip each day by car with their formerteacher who lived in De lray Beach. In 1937Mishi Kamiya obtained a bachelor of sciencedegree from Florida State College for Womenin Tallahassee and took up teaching as acareer.

Frank Kamiya, one of the brothers , whos t i l l l ives in Lake Worth, was also born atYamato. He a t t ended Palm Beach Jun io rCollege graduating in 1937. Frank then wentto Miami where he worked as a cook in anI t a l i an restaurant un t i l his retirement in1965. Frank Kamiya v i s i t ed his old schoolmates in 1981 and was then interviewed byBetty Cruickshank (Spanish River Papers, May1982). His father had a general store s e l l -ing shoes, clothing, pots and pans, candy,tobacco, and a l l kinds of grocer ies . Thestore was located on Dixie Highway on the

east s ide of the r a i l road about half a mi lenorth of Yamato Road.

Henry Tamemasu Kamiya, the father ofMasuko, Mishi, Frank, and three other child-ren, was a brother of Jo Sakai and came toYamato in 1908 at the age of 28. From 1913to 1934 he ran the grocery s tore and gass t a t i o n on Dixie Highway. In 1920 he suc-ceeded Jo Sakai as leader of the Yamato com-munity. During World War I I , the elderKamiya j o i n e d one of h i s d a u g h t e r s in

STUDIO PORTRAIT OF THE JO SAKAI FAMILY,C.1921. Clockwise from le f t : Sada, Yoshiko,Chikako, Yomoko, Jo, Itsuko, and Shoko.

California and was interned at Manzanar forthe duration.

At the end of the war, Henry Kamiyareturned to Yamato but found nothing l e f t .He stayed in south F lor ida for almost tenyears before re turn ing to Ca l i fo rn ia . In1955 he went back to Japan and died there atthe age of 85.

Some of the Japanese were cremated atYamato, probably under somewhat surrepticiouscircumstances. A newspaper reported that JoSakai left for Japan in Janury 1907 with theashes of his dead Yamato Colony comrades whohad been cremated some days e a r l i e r . Thetyphoid epidemic occurred in 1907 and i t isl i ke ly that the remains of Mr. Oki, GeorgeMorikami's sponsor, were returned to Japan inthis manner. It is diff icult at this time too b t a i n c o n f i r m a t i o n of these s e c r e tcremations at Yamato. However, The TropicalS_un of October 1915 c a r r i e d t h i s item*."Grower A. Ninomaya, Yamato grower dead.Ashes sen t to Japan p a r c e l pos t in twoparcels by his friend J. Sakai."

The Morikami Museum has compiled fairlycomplete records of qui te a number of others e t t l e r s . Hideo Kobayashi, Kinosaki, HyogoPrefecture came to Yamato in 1907. He laterb r i e f l y r e t u r n e d to Japan to marry andbrought h i s wife, Umeko, to Yamato in 1921.lineko Kobayashi died in Ft. Lauderdale at theage of 85 on March 27, 1984. In 1937 theKobayashis es tab l i shed a successful land-scaping firm in Ft. Lauderdale.

Sumiko Kobayashi, who lived in Yamatoduring the f i rs t two years of her life, in ana r t i c l e published in the September 1918Morikami Newsle t te r , has recorded what sheremembers about her mother who came to Yamatoin 1921 as the young b r i d e of SusumuKobayashi:

The marriage of Suye Matsumoto andSusunn Kobayashi was arranged betweenthe families with the aid of amarriage broker (baishakunin) as isstill the custom in many parts ofJapan today. About 1922,althoughhe was thousands of miles away inFlorida, Susumu's parents decidedit was time for him to marry andsettle down. They asked the marri-age broker to look around for asuitable bride. He contacted theMatsuonto family which was alsolooking for a husband for theiryoung dughter. The go-betweenhelped the two families to come toamutually satisfactory arrange-ment. It was his task to investi-gate the family history on bothSidea to aaaure a match between &man and wanan who were from com-parable social backgrounds. Al-though Susumu's father was aphysician and therefore rankedhigher than a shonin, or mer-chant, Suye's father was one ofthe most affluent men in Iya.

Pictures were exchanged inaccordance with established custom,but the couple did not meet untilthe marriage had been agreed to byboth parties. . . .If both brideand groan had been in Japan, thepair would have met in person atsome neutral place (such as arestaurant) with their familiesprior to the final agreement. Thishowever was not possible with thegroom thousands of miles away.

When arrangements had been completed Susumureturned to Japan to marry and take his brideback to Yamato.

YAMATO MEN CELEBRATING A GOOD CROP WITH APICNIC, 1916. In the foreground facing thecamera: Susumu Kobayashi.

By the outbreak of World War II, HideoKobayashi had acquired more than 500 acres inthe Yamato area. In May 1942, U.S. DistrictJudge John W. Holland ordered the land ownedby the Japanese settlers to be turned over tothe U.S. Government for the site of the PalmBeach Air Corps Technical Training Station.The Yamato lands were part of a vast 5,800acre tract in northwest Boca Raton acquiredby the Army Air Corps. This included most ofthe present site of Florida Atlantic Univer-sity and the old Boca Raton Air Field.

The land owned by the Japanese settlerswas appraised by the federal government andreparations were made after the confiscation.After the war some of the original ownersmanaged to get back part of their land. Ac-cording to Tom Gregersen, speaking at a meet-ing of the Historical Society of Palm Beach

County November 9, 1982, the U.S. Army AirCorps used the former Japanese homes fortarget prac t ice and the Yamato area becameknown as "Blitz Village."

Another successful s e t t l e r was ShobiKamikama who left Japan around 1904 and thenproceeded from Seat t le by t ra in to New Yorks t a t e . Kamikama had waited at tables at amilitary academy in Rochester, New York forsome ten years when he heard of Yamato. Hearrived here in 1917 and joined the Colonywhich then included about forty people.

The 1970 Boca Raton Directory l i s t s aShohbi Kamikama, "ret ired", as l iving off5300 N. Dixie Highway. He had bought the oldYamato school house. Not much is known howKamikama spent his fifty years in Boca Raton.Living frugally he somehow acquired sub-s tan t i a l real es ta te holdings and ended upperhaps the weal thiest of a l l the Japaneseset t lers . In 1972, a reporter from 'Hie MiamiHerald visited Kamikama who was then 82 yearsold. After t rave l l ing down a seldom useddi r t road off North Dixie Highway, the r e -porter found Kamikama l iving in a "hoary"cement cottage with a stout Bahamian house-keeper, Catherine Rogers. The cottage insidewas piled high with boxes and old newspapersbut contained l i t t l e furniture.

In the Engineering Department at theBoca Raton Town Hall there is a 1942 map ofthe Boca Raton Air Field drawn at the timethe area was confiscated. Shobi Kamikamaheads the l i s t of land owners with 225.71acres. This property was bought in September1947 by a local rea l tor for $1,250,000 andhas since become known as the South CongressIndustr ia l Center. The area is located onClint Moore Road between Military Trail andCongress Avenue and was annexed by the c i tyas recently as January 1985.

Kamikama also owned a block of somethirteen acres near his cottage and extendingalong Federal Highway between Yamato Road and

Newcastle S t ree t . Shown on some maps asSands P ines Park, i t was appra i sed at$642,000 at the time of Kamikama's death.This property has recently been developed andis now known as the Pylon Park office com-plex.

Life in South Florida involved greatphysical hardship for the early s e t t l e r s .Sanitary faci l i t ies must have been primitivenot only in the Colony but amongst the SouthFlor ida population generally. I t is notsurpr is ing that there was an outbreak oftyphoid in the area in 1907 during whichMorikami's sponsor, Mr. Oki, died. GeorgeMorikami in the interview with Pozzetta andKersey recalled frequent flooding of the landwhich destroyed valuable crops. Deadlysnakes, disease, and the insufferable heattook their tol l amongst the colonists.

I n i t i a l l y the Japanese had been madevery welcome by the Floridians. They enjoyedthe beach and spent much of their spare timearound the rock formation just north ofSpani sh River Road. This beach area becameknown as "Yamidto Rocks" o* "J&p Roekn." Aspot marked "Jap Rock" is shown on the DelrayBeach sheet of the U.S. Geological Survey map7.5 minute se r ies (Sheet N. 2622.5). YamatoRoad or 51st Street was also known unt i lquite recently as "Jap Road." The term "Jap"is considered offensive to Japanese nationalsand Japanese-Americans and its use like otherracial and ethnic slurs is to be discouraged.

In 1905, the Japanese celebrated NewYear ' s Day by e n t e r t a i n i n g a p a r t y ofAmerican gueets with Japanese songs and ademonstration of Japanese wrestling and judo.Miami's fifteenth birthday in 1911 was markedby a special program and fest ivit ies arrangedby the Board of Trade and sponsored by localmerchants. Isidor Cohen in his c l a s s i cHistorical Sketches and Sidelights of. Miami,Flor ida published in 1925, notes (page 82)that Robert R. Taylor promoted some j iu- j i t su

exhibitions and that the performers came fromYamato, an agr icu l tu ra l set t lement betweenMiami and West Palm Beach.

Pozzetta and Kersey record that by 1912an ugly s t r a in of anti-Japanese sentimentbecame noticeable. Natives were worried thatthe Japanese could not acquire U.S. cit izen-ship and would remain an unassimi lated group.On October 16, 1913 The Tropical Sun carriedan ed i to r i a l on the anti-Japanese stand ofCongressman Frank Clark.

. . . This sounds very well as beingalong the lines of the old-fashionedKnow Nothing party doctrines which thecountry seans gradually adopting butis not on a line with his F.E.C. Ry.friends who brought a number of Japsto this country and a colony of themare now living at Yamato where theyown land.

The Yamato Post Office having been dis-cont inued, the mail was r e r o u t e d v iaBocaratone (the name of the town was changedto Boca Raton during the Mizner era). Somehardy families however remained and by the1930s probably between twenty and twenty-fiveJapanese including at least twelve childrenwere left in Yamato living quiet lives.

George Morikami, working on his own farmin West Delray planting tomatoes, eventuallybecame quite successful and employed five orsix black sharecroppers. With the p ro f i t sfrom his labors, George s ta r ted buying upland in West Delray which in the 1930s couldbe bought for f i f teen to seventeen dol la rsper acre. By 1941, George had to pay as muchas thirty-one dollars per acre.

George had an acute business sense andin the 1920s ran a mail order business. Hehad obtained a customer's l i s t from a localbank and i n i t i a l l y sent out 300 double per-forated cards with one side quoting pr icesand the tear-off portion serving as orderform. Morikami has recorded in an oralinterview that in th is way he amassed a

STANDING IN FRONT OF A PORTRAIT OF JO ANDSADA SAKAI, TADASHI YAMAGUCHI (LEFT) ANDHIROSHI AND TAKAKO SAKAI ADDRESS THEGATHERING FOR YAMATO HERITAGE DAY AT fvOUKAMIPARK, 4 MAY 1985. Tadashi Yamaguchi i s theson of Tomoko Sakai, who was born in Yamato.The S a k a i s , b r o t h e r and s i s t e r from Kyoto,Japan , a r e grand nephew and n i e c e of theYamato founder.

fortune of $250,000 during the boom years ofthe 1920s. However, in the depression hisbank deposits evaporated. Also, much of hisland was lost for taxes during these badyears.

Following Pear l Harbor, the few r e s i -dents left at Yamato came under suspicion.However they were not in te rned as theJapanese in California but r e s t r i c t e d totravel within the county. Special permissionwas needed by the Japanese to withdraw moneyfrom their bank accounts.

The Kobayashi's had established theirlandscaping business in Fort Lauderdale be-fore the outbreak of war. They were l ivinginDelray Beach and the elder Kobayashi hadto t ravel daily to Broward County. AfterPearl Harbor, two U.S. Coast Guard seamenmoved in with the faraily and one of themwould go with Mr. Kobayashi where ever hewent* After s ix mon,ths of, this, the: f ami ,ly:

moved to Fort Lauderdale and they were freeto move around Broward County without aguard.

George Morikami bought up addit ionalacreage after World War II until his holdingsreached over 1,000 acres. In 1967, at theage of eighty-one, he became a U.S. c i t i zenunder the l iberal ized provisions of theMcCarren-Walter Immigration Act.

On Janury 2, 1968, George was honored bythe City of Delray Beach and presented with aplaque declaring him Honorary Mayor of DelrayBeach. By then the value of his land hadincreased manifold and George had become ami l l iona i re . However, he continued to livesimply and frugally in a small t rai ler parkedin one of his fields and ate the f ru i t s andvegetables which he grew himself. The t r a i l -er was perched atop a l i t t l e hi l l George hadbu i l t . He called th is "Mt. Fuji."

A mutual acquaintance introduced GeorgeMorikami to George Yamaoka, a distinguishedJapanese-American who was wintering in Ft.

Lauderdale. Yamaoka was struck by Morikami'swarm and amicable relat ionship with thepeople of Delray Beach and recognized pos-s ib i l i t i es for Morikami's land as recreat-ional f a c i l i t y . According to the Mor ikamiNewsletter of April 1982, Yamaoka suggestedto Morikami that he should make a gift of hisland to the public, since he had no family ofhis own in this country.

Virginia Snyder of Delray Beach does notagree with this version of the story whichYamaoka gave to the Morikami staff. Ac-cording to Snyder, George was far too inde-pendent in his thinking to be so influencedin such an important decision and it wasentirely his idea to dedicate the acreage tothe public. Although he may have discussedthis with his Japanese friends, the ultimatedecision was his and his alone,

Snyder, a former Fort lauderdale Newsreporter and now a private invest igator ,f i r s t met George Morikami in 1967 when shedid a story on him for her paper. Theybecame close friends and George found inSnyder a person in whom he could trust im-pl ic i t ly.

In 1963 George Morikami donated fortyacres of his land to the State of Florida foruse as an Agricultural Experimental Station.The au thor i t i es were slow in taking actionand George offered $30,000 to get the enter-pr i se going. The City of Delray Beach re-ceived a similar offer of acreage for a citypark, but at first refused to accept becauseof lack of funds for development. In 1973the Commissioners of Palm Beach County ac-cepted a second forty-acre t rac t for parkland. Morikami la ter donated another 100a n d The Mor ikami Museum of Japanesea i l - (its full name) thus comes under thejurisdiction of Palm Beach County Departmentof Parks and Recreation.

George Morikami died on February 29,1976 at the ripe age of eighty-nine. The

Morikami Museum and Park opened on June 25,1977, a little over one year after George'sdeath. Morikami Park now includes a total of155 acres of land upon which George Morikamionce grew pineapples and vegetables.

It is impossible within the scope ofthis paper to tell the full story of GeorgeMorikami. This was a self-educated man whohad only a year or two of formal schooling inthis country. But he surrounded himself withbooks on philosophy and archeology and waswidely read. George Morikami was morefortunate in his advisers than his friendShobi Kamikama who had also, almostaccidentally, become a millionaire landowner. Both lived frugally. Kamikami'sestate was largely eaten up by legal feesincluding an exorbitant charge from agenealogical service to trace his relativesin Japan. The Morikami estate has remainedintact. As western Delray is beingdeveloped, the acreage is getting immenselyvaluable.

An attempt to explain the ultimate fail-ure of the Yamato Colony has been made in astudy by the Morikami Museum sponsored by theEthnic Heritage Studies Program, U.S. Officeof Education, Department of Health, Educationand Welfare.

1. Extremely harsh climatic and en-viroimsntal conditions may have dis-couraged the farmers.

2. The pineapple industry faileddue to disease and Cuban competition,wiping out hopes of prosperity forsome.

3. Yamato was largely a bachelorcolony. Immigration laws and dis-tance meant that few of the mencould get wives. For a conmunityto endure, women and children—families—are necessary.

4. Illness and death of Jo Sakaideprived the conmunity of its leader.

5. Some individuals may have mettheir goals, sold their propertyand returned to Japan.

6. Dissension and disagreement overmanagement of the colony apparentlyled to the departure of severalindividuals.

Yamato, Florida: A Col on1) of JapaneseFarmers in Florida.

Despite a spate of encouraging reportsand some moderate successes in itsearly years (1905-1910) Yamato seemsnever to have fulfilled its expect-ations. No one reason adequatelyexplains the slow disintegration ofthe small colony whose populationprobably did not exceed 100 at itspeak. Several factors contributed:

Yamato descendants attending ceremonies in conjunction withYamato Heritage Day at Morikami Park, May 4, 1985.

(names in parentheses identify family affiliations when des-cendants' names differ)1. Dorothy Oishi (spouse)2. Jeffrey Oishi3. Roy OishiA. Douglas Grimm (spouse, Kamiya)5. Uilllam Hughes (spouse, Kamiya)6. Tadashi Yaniaguchi (Sakai)7. Maizel Kobayashi (spouse, Hideo Kobayashi)

Tamotsu ("Tom") Kobayashi (Kideo Kobayashi)*Herbert Suga (spouse, Kamiya)9.

10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19.20.21.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29.30.31.32.33.34.35.

Masuko Kamiya Suga*Ronald Suga (Kamiya)John Kinkead (Kamiya)Yuri Long (Kamiya)Hiroshi SakaiFrank Kamiya*Takako SakaiKiin Kobayashi (Hideo Kobayashi)Tomiko Kobayaahi (Hideo Kobayashi)*Tim Morinioto (Kamiya)Henry KamiyaAnne Kobayashi (spouse, Susumu Kobayashi)Sandra Kinkead (Kamiya)Ken KamiyaBobbie Grimm (Karniya)Toriko Kamiya (spouse)Sumi Hughes (Kamiya)Jay Kobayashi (Susumu Kobayashi)Ken Kobayashi (Susumu Kobayashi)Sutniko Kobayashi (Susumu Kobayashi)*Suye Kobayashi (Susumu Kobayashi)*+Noboru Kobayashi (Susumu Kobayashi)Sage KamiyaLeia Nami KamiyaTammy Kinkead (Kamiya)

""lived at Yamato+only surviving firstgeneration member

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