A Japanese Samurai Who Became a California Winemaker

Following Harris to New York, Nagasawa was one of the first 8 Japanese to arrive in the America.

He was accompanied by 4 fellow clan members who had left Japan to learn more about the West, even though contact with the West was expressly forbidden by the Japanese Emperor, at the time.

These 5 had been part of a group of 15 Japanese young men who were smuggled out of their homes by the leader of their clan (the Satsuma clan was one of the major clans responsible for the modernization of Japan).

In 1865, these young men left Kagoshima harbor in the dark of night, debarked in Hong Kong, cut their hair, bought western clothes, and changed their names.

It was then that Hikosuke Isonaga, son of a wealthy Confucian scholar, stone carver, and astronomer, became for the rest of his life Kanaye Nagasawa.

Nagasawa was the youngest of the group, and was the only 1 who did not return to Japan after the Meiji Restoration.

The rest went back to become important representatives in the government of the emerging nation.

The 4 others in the group who lived with Harris at his Brocton colony went home and were named ambassadors to the United States, Russia, and France and became professors of the first Western-style university of Japan, called Tokyo Imperial University.

Nagasawa elected to stay with “father Faithful” of the Brotherhood of New Life, and lived at Brocton, New York.

During these years, Kanaye Nagasawa also attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

When Kanaye was 18, Thomas Lake Harris made a momentous move.

He left for Santa Rosa, California to build a new colony that would become the new headquarters for his “Brotherhood.”

The site he chose, located on the outskirts of Santa Rosa, was named “Fountain Grove: The Eden of the West.”

Local denizens and the growing Japanese community of Sonoma County, California came to know him as the “Wine King” of California.

He was the first to introduce California wines to England, Europe, and Japan.

On weekends, he would invite local dignitaries and Japanese embassy officials to his lavish enormous estate and house.

Nagasawa was selected by Harris to be the among the elected few of his leadership, and Nagasawa’s task was cultivating grapes and sustaining the colony.

The land purchased was a 600 acre estate in beautiful Sonoma County.

Eventually, the Utopian community disbanded, and Harris gave Nagasawa the entire estate, now totaling over 2,000 acres of prime agricultural land.

Part of the colony included a unique round barn that still stood until the Tubb’s Fire.

There they were given the finest entertainment and foods. By the turn of the century, Nagasawa was known as “Baron of Fountaingrove.”

In his huge house, the rooms downstairs were filled with books encompassing literature and art from all over the world.

He was known to have read hour after hour, all in English.

His prolific letters and writings would eventually be donated to the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley.

In 1934, Nagasawa passed away, and left his estate to his niece and nephew.

Due to discriminatory Alien Land Laws that forbade Japanese nationals from owning land or businesses in California, Nagasawa was forced to leave part of the ownership of Fountaingrove in the hands of a non-Japanese trustee.

In 1942, under F.D.R.’s Executive Order 9066, his heirs lost this beautiful land.

His descendants were incarcerated throughout the war years in the Japanese American internment camps, and Fountaingrove was confiscated by the trustee (a court case was entered to fight the confiscation, but the heirs lost the case).

Today, the lands lost by Nagasawa are worth millions, but the descendants who survived the traumas of World War II living in the camps and who were still living in 1988 received $20,000 for compensation for their lost land.

The history of Kanaye Nagasawa is a truly Asian American story of pioneering spirit, triumphal achievement, bittersweet loss, and reconciliation.

The Tubbs Fire, which began the night of Oct. 8, 2017, would turn out to be one of the worst fires in California history, burning more than 110,000 acres and destroying nearly 7,000 structures.

Among its casualties were the last vestiges of the historic Fountaingrove Winery, pioneered by Kanaye Nagasawa, one of the first Japanese immigrants to America.

The Round Barn, an iconic landmark that was built on Fountaingrove in 1889, burned to the ground.

Also gone:

the buildings of the adjacent Paradise Ridge Winery, which had housed an exhibit about Nagasawa, who had been known in his time as the “Wine King” of California both locally and in his native Kagoshima

KAGOSHIMA—The cherished sword of a samurai who established a prominent winery in California was found in the ruins of a building destroyed in wildfires that swept the U.S. state in October.

The Paradise Ridge Winery had kept the blade of Kanaye Nagasawa (1852-1934), from what is now Kagoshima Prefecture, at an exhibition facility in Santa Rosa, along with his tuxedo, traditional “hakama” trousers and other possessions.

The fires in northern California last autumn burned the facility to the ground. During debris removal work on March 13, the burnt and blackened sword was uncovered.

Rene Byck, a co-owner of the Paradise Ridge Winery, expressed his elation on Facebook about the discovery of the blade. He described it as the “best news ever.” The biggest sadness for me after the fire is that there’s no way to get any more wood from Fountaingrove or barrels. There’s no way to get the clothing or the curtains. Those are the things that are just devastating,” Byck-Barwick said.

Late last year, Byck said he wanted to rebuild the exhibition room but acknowledged it would be difficult to find any articles that survived the disaster. Nagasawa was a retainer of the Satsuma domain (present-day Kagoshima Prefecture) who studied in Britain and then moved to the United States.He set up one of California’s largest wineries in Santa Rosa. The Paradise Ridge Winery later took over parts of Nagasawa’s grape fields.

Takaharu Mori, a professor of American literature at the International University of Kagoshima, said the sword is especially significant among Nagasawa’s mementos.

“Nagasawa respected the spirit of the samurai even after moving to the United States,” Mori said. “Thus, the sword for Nagasawa must have been as important as life itself.”

According to Mori, Nagasawa is believed to have practiced martial arts of the Jigen-ryu school with a wooden sword in the United States. He reportedly drew his sword to show it to American guests at his home.

An official of Ichikikushikino, Kagoshima Prefecture, welcomed the finding of the sword. The municipality is home to the Satsuma Students Museum, which displays materials related to Nagasawa and 18 others from the domain and had asked the Paradise Ridge Winery for help in starting operations.

“When I visited there (California) in February, there were only burnt debris and ashes,” said Yosuke Okunosono, a member of the city’s tourism and exchange division. “It’s a miracle that the sword has been discovered.”