Sec I went back and looked at that link again. I think the problem
was I typed something wrong. The correct url is:
http://www.directcon.net/pharmer/Wakamatsu/Wakamatsu.html
The name of the site is Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony at Gold
Hill, California. If the url still won't work, then type the name
into Yahoo. It will definitely come up that way.
For those of you who are a bit confused, during the Boshin War a man
named J. H. Schnell smuggled refugees out of Aizu and brought them to
America. One was a young woman named Okei. They founded the Wakamatsu
Tea and Silk Company at Gold Hill in 1869 (near modern day
Placerville, CA), but it folded after only two years. Everyone went
their seperate ways. Okei remained in the area as an employee of a
local family. She seems to have died very young of tuberculosis and
her grave is on a hill near where the community once existed.
While searching for the site again I came across two more pdf files:
co.el-dorado.ca.us/bos/pdf/ang8-27.pdf
co.el-dorado.ca.us/bos/pdf/cang08-27-2002.pdf
(The first url might end /cang8-27.pdf. I have no idea if these two
files are the same or not. Still need to download that reader...)
But wait! I found something even more exciting! A man named Jonathan
Pearce has actually writen a book about the colony! It's called The
Far Side of the Moon. ISBN# 1-59411-011-5 (Note I saw more than one
ISBN# for this book. The one I listed appears to be more recent.)
He explains the reason he wrote the book at the below url:
http://www.balona.com/moonwhy.html
There is mention of another book called Samurai at Gold Hill by
Yoshiko Uchida. I guess that means this book should be available here
in the U.S.? Worth checking into anyway.
There is also a brief letter to the author from a decendant of the
family that Okei worked for:
http://www.balona.com/moontestimonial.html
I MUST find The Far Side of the Moon!
-MissBehavin