DETOURS

Adam Monahan:

GBH's Antiques Roadshow goes on the air every Monday at 8:00 PM, 7:00 Central. And on many Tuesdays we get emails from viewers hoping to get in contact with our guests. My boss on the show, Marsha Bemko, has seen a lot of these emails.

Marsha Bemko:

Yeah. Tuesday's a pretty active email day after a broadcast. Yep.

Adam Monahan:

Why are they trying to do that normally, Marsh?

Marsha Bemko:

Well, sometimes they want to talk to our guests because really often they want to buy what the guest owns. No, no, no, no. You're not going to pressure our owners to sell their stuff.

Adam Monahan:

Yeah. This is not the Home Shopping Network, people.

Marsha Bemko:

Leave our guest alone. They don't want to sell it anyway, so leave them alone.

Adam Monahan:

For the most part, yes, unless they do. But even then you don't get to talk to them.

Marsha Bemko:

Yep.

Adam Monahan:

But sometimes we do get an email that is worthy to connect the guests, in which case we won't pass them your information, but we will pass along your email to the guests and tell them, "We thought you'd be interested in hearing this or reading this from somebody who watched your appraisal on our show." Can you talk about that?

Marsha Bemko:

It's usually a scholarly pursuit and I mean, we once found a necklace that somebody wanted to reach out to the guest because they want a photo in their book because it's so rare. Stuff like that.

Adam Monahan:

Now we got one that certainly tickled our curiosity. This one was from the narrative of a Japanese books that we had that where was this? Crocker Art Museum. Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. Do you remember the item?

Marsha Bemko:

I remember the item, and I'll be honest, I knew this was coming, so I went and watched it this morning.

Video soundbite:

Anyone who cares about Japanese American history would find this to be kind of like the foundational book and rare enough as it is.

Marsha Bemko:

It was about the life of a early Japanese immigrant coming to America and the claim to it was is that he was the very first Japanese American. Did I remember that right, Adam?

Adam Monahan:

You are correct. The first, the very first Japanese American, Joseph Heco. And this is about him.

Video soundbite:

It's amazing.

It is amazing. I mean, you also think of he's a Japanese now American.

Adam Monahan:

So there was an emailer that saw the appraisal and thought, "I think I'm connected to this story."

Marsha Bemko:

Yeah, that is a forwardable email, so worthy. What happened though, Adam? I don't remember what happened when we put them in touch.

Adam Monahan:

In this episode, we'll go on a journey across the Pacific and back with Joseph Heco, an accidental explorer who had an incredible story. And then we'll meet our emailer whose fateful Roadshow encounter led him on a journey of his own.

I'm Adam Monahan, a producer with GVH's Antiques Roadshow, and this is Detour. Today, the first Japanese American.

When this episode's Roadshow guest, who asked that we not use her name, won tickets to our 2019 show in Sacramento, California, she went looking for something to bring in from her grandfather's book collection.

Her grandfather was a professor at Stanford University and he had an impressive library. Surely there had to be something significant in there, but at first glance nothing seemed right.

Guest:

Things are dogeared and underlined and no first editions. But then I found this set of books. This is different. It had what looked like old handwriting and a name in it. So I thought, "Let's take these."

Adam Monahan:

Our guest had selected a pair of thick red hardcovers with the title Narrative of a Japanese. She didn't know a lot about them, but they looked important. And in fact, they were. Our appraiser, Martin Gammon, saw that right away.

Martin Gammon:

Well, thank you so much for coming to the Roadshow today in Sacramento and bringing these fascinating volumes. Why don't you tell me a little bit about how you acquired them and where they came from?

Guest:

So my grandfather grew up in Japan and then became a teacher in Japan. He later became a professor at Stanford and I inherited his library.

Martin Gammon:

All right. Well, we were very excited to see them because not only are these two volumes extremely rare, they also have an incredible history.

Adam Monahan:

The author of these books was born but Hikozo Hamada, but he is better known today as Joseph Heco. His long journey began in 1850 when Heco was just a teenager, sailing off the coast of Japan.

Bob Oaks:

And as often happened in these days, his ship was caught in a storm, swept out to sea, lost his rudder, and floated hopelessly for 50 days.

Adam Monahan:

This is Bob Oaks, a docent at the Honolulu Museum of Art, an author of an article on Joseph Heco's life. Heco and his 16 or so crewmates were stranded somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, unable to sail home to Japan. But even if they had managed to reach the shore, they might not have been welcomed back.

Bob Oaks:

Japan from the 1630s until the 1850s was a closed society. It was a capital offense literally to leave Japan. It was also a capital offense to enter Japan.

So when you got lost at sea, if you wanted to go back home, you were committing two capital offenses and this was somewhat of a catch 22.

Adam Monahan:

Luckily, Heco's ship had a hefty supply of rice and the fuel to cook it, and with the fish they caught and the rainwater they collected, the crew managed to hang on for almost three months...

Until they happened upon an American cargo ship on its way from Hong Kong to San Francisco. Nobody on the Japanese ship knew English and nobody on the American ship knew Japanese, but one crew member was able to bridge the gap.

Bob Oaks:

It just so happened that the cook on this ship was Chinese, and even though they didn't speak the same languages, they wrote some of the same characters. So they were able to communicate more or less simply by writing things out.

Adam Monahan:

The ship landed in San Francisco in March of 1851. Heco was just 14 years old. For most Californians, Japanese sailors were a totally new and intriguing site. Heco and his crewmates were paraded around to a masquerade ball and toured through the offices of a local daily newspaper. But they were more than just a fun novelty. They were potentially a diplomatic asset.

Bob Oaks:

This is a time when the United States government was trying to open Japan. All the Americans wanted to trade with Japan. They wanted coding stations in Japan, et cetera.

And so some people thought, "Well, if we just send these people back home, the Japanese will be so grateful that they'll immediately open up their doors," which of course couldn't be farther from the truth.

Adam Monahan:

And so Heco's fate became tied to the government's agenda. In 1851, just months after the castaways arrived, President Millard Fillmore sent a Navy expedition to compel Japan to open a port where Americans could stop for supplies and fuel. Heco and his crewmates were sent to Hong Kong to join the expedition.

Bob Oaks:

By this time, Heco had made friends with an American named Thomas Troy and Troy wanted to learn Japanese and Heco wanted to learn English. And so they became sort of a symbiotic friendship. And so when they went back to Hong Kong, Heco persuaded Troy to come along, too.

Adam Monahan:

But things did not go according to plan. The ships they were supposed to meet up with were delayed and Heco was left floating once again.

Bob Oaks:

They were in Hong Kong for several months. It was awfully hot. They were confined to a ship. And so Troy said, "I want to go back to San Francisco. There's a gold rush going on for God's sake. Let's go make some money."

Adam Monahan:

So back to the United States they went. They didn't get into the gold rush. Instead, Troy found work on a ship and Heco got a job at a boarding house.

Bob Oaks:

But one day another captain he knew came walking up with a person in Japanese clothes. And Heco's first thought, "My God, I'm going to be arrested," because he thought it was somebody who was a Japanese official. But later realized this was simply another poor castaway sailor who fell to his knees crying when he found someone who could speak his language.

Adam Monahan:

The man was the only survivor of his ship's 12-man crew. They decided to bring him to the senior most member of the US government in San Francisco, a customs officer named Beverly Sanders. Sanders agreed to help the other castaway, and he was so impressed by Heco's ability to translate, he offered him a job.

Bob Oaks:

There wasn't any kind of managerial, but from Heco's perspective, he'd made it.

Adam Monahan:

Sanders took such a liking to Heco that when he went to the East Coast on business, he took the teenager with him. Along the way, Heco was introduced to new technologies like the telegraph and the steam engine. They went to New York City and then Baltimore. Heco even accompanied Sanders to the White House where he unexpectedly made history.

Bob Oaks:

They were waiting in an ante room. And much to Heco's surprise, the President walked in.

Adam Monahan:

President Franklin Pierce to be exact.

Bob Oaks:

All by himself, no guards, no bands, no trumpets, dressed just as they were dressed, no special clothes. And if that wasn't surprising enough, the president walked up to the two and shook their hands. My God, he touched them.

Adam Monahan:

Heco was struck by how informal the visit was. Later writing that in Japan, "Even the smallest district official has more pomp and splendor about his person than this man has." There might not have been the ceremony Heco expected, but it was a momentous occasion.

Heco was the first Japanese person to meet a US President, and it was a fortuitous time for this to happen because Heco's own life was once again strangely in sync with international relations.

The year Heco met the president was the same year that a famous American expedition finally reached the shores of Japan, led by Commodore Matthew Perry.

Bob Oaks:

Perry told the Shogun, who was the military dictator in Edo, which we now know as Tokyo, "I'm going to come back in a year with more ships, bigger guns, and I want to see your ports opened."

Adam Monahan:

A year later, Perry returned to receive Japan's answer, a reluctant yes. The two nations signed the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854, officially opening two ports to US ships and establishing a US Consulate in Japan. But they still hadn't achieved the elusive goal of opening a trade relationship between the two nations.

While all this is playing out, Heco was living in Baltimore with the family of Beverly Sanders, the customs agent who had given him a job. He was going to an American school improving his English, and he even went as far as to convert to the Sanders' religion, Roman Catholicism.

Bob Oaks:

And when he converted, the priest said, "Well, you need a saint's name." So he gave him several options and Heco said, "Joseph sounds pretty good." So henceforth, he's known as Joseph Heco.

Adam Monahan:

Now, as a point of clarification, Heco was not the first Japanese person to ever set foot on American soil.

Bob Oaks:

There was another famous teenager who preceded Heco. His name was Manjiro. And he was rescued by a whaling ship and he liked the life, so he became a whaler in Connecticut.

Adam Monahan:

Manjiro is generally considered to be the first Japanese immigrant to the United States arriving in 1843. Joseph Heco, however, made history in 1858 when he became the first Japanese-American citizen.

Bob Oaks:

A judge swore in Joseph Heco as the very first naturalized Japanese-American citizen, even though it raised eyebrows because the law at the time said citizenship was only open to white persons. So what is a Japanese? The judge apparently thought that this was sufficient, but others didn't.

Adam Monahan:

In fact, the US barred people of most racial backgrounds, including Japanese immigrants, from becoming naturalized US citizens. It would take almost a century for those racial barriers to finally come down with the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952.

But back to 1858, that's the year Joseph Heco became a US citizen. And it was also the year that Japan and the US signed that long sought after trade agreement. At that point, after nearly a decade in the us, Heco finally wound his way back to Japanese shores.

He got a job as a translator at the US Consulate and eventually started his own import/export business, working in part with his old business contacts in San Francisco.

And of course, everyone wanted to know the wild story of how he went from castaway to diplomatic asset to entrepreneur. So he wrote it down.

Video Soundbite:

I was very excited to see these because only three copies of this book have appeared in the auction market for the last 30 years. So they're very, very hard to find.

Adam Monahan:

The version of Heco's book that appeared on our show is a two volume set, hard cover bound, and in surprisingly good condition, it was an exciting moment for our appraiser and our guest alike.

Guest:

It was very emotional on a variety of different levels. Number one thing was to represent my family, my grandparents, but also my great grandparents.

Adam Monahan:

And then there was the significance of Joseph Heco himself in the history of American immigration.

Guest:

That's 1858. Okay? It's almost a hundred years later that all Japanese immigrants were accorded the right to be naturalized.

Adam Monahan:

So it's an extremely important book historically. What about monetarily?

Video Soundbite:

I would say conservatively that the pair would probably have an auction estimate of six to $8,000 in today's marketplace, and you probably could have them insured for at least $10,000.

Guest:

I was surprised. So part of my feeling was after the show was over, "Okay, what do I do now? Where do I take these? How do I preserve his story and pass it on?"

Adam Monahan:

The appraisal aired on our show a few months later.

Guest:

And in the subsequent months after that, a variety of people, "Hey, were you on Antiques Roadshow?" And then there's nothing for a while.

Then what's curious, they do re-air episodes. Randomly, they re-aired this one, and that's when the story takes a detour.

Adam Monahan:

After the break, a viewer recognizes something in the appraisal that our guest and appraiser didn't.

When our guest's appraisal appeared in a rerun, her story took a detour. Her words, not ours. The detour's name is Ken.

Ken Duer:

My name is Ken Duer. I reside in Los Angeles, California.

Adam Monahan:

So Ken, tell us about the surprise you got one time watching our program.

Ken Duer:

Okay, so last August, I just thought I am just going to take a 10-minute coffee break. Went into my family room, looked on my TV, and Antiques Roadshow was on it.

Video Soundbite:

So your grandfather collected Japanese books or books related to Japan and the Near East, is that right?

Ken Duer:

Automatically it got my attention because I was born and raised in Japan and they were explaining about the book.

Video:

So these books were published in Yokohama in 1895. And this particular two volume set is also inscribed by the author in the second volume dated 1895.

Ken Duer:

And then the page turned and it was a closeup of a handwritten note by the author and it said, Yin Duer. And I just couldn't believe my eyes.

Adam Monahan:

The inscription reads, "To Y. Duer, Esquire, with compliments of the author." Y. Duer was short for Yin Duer. And Ken knew that because Yin Duer was his great-grandfather.

Ken Duer:

I have a photo of my great-grandfather and the family by the dining area. I couldn't help myself but just to look around and like, "Are you trying to tell me something here?"

Adam Monahan:

Ken couldn't let this coincidence slip by.

Ken Duer:

I just thought that if I were able to make contact with this person that came on with the book, maybe I can get more information about my own great-grandfather; not to say, "Hey, this belonged to my great-grandfather." None of that. I was just so curious and just blown away by it.

Adam Monahan:

So Ken reached out. He emailed someone at GBH who emailed someone else, and eventually the request landed in our guest's inbox.

Guest:

I just kind of left it alone. I don't know. And so I didn't even want to open it. And then PBS contacted me again and I thought, "Okay, this sounds on the up and up. They've done the research. Sure."

Adam Monahan:

So tell me about your first contact with Ken. What did you guys discuss and what happened?

Guest:

So his emails were very supportive and excited and enthusiastic, and he was also very supportive of what I was going through, and I needed that. I feel that here's another person trying to get information of a time period where very few foreigners lived in Japan.

Adam Monahan:

Their ancestors were both part of that same small club of foreigners. So Ken and our guest started emailing and video calling, sharing the information they had about their relatives' stories; and trying to figure out how the heck a book inscribed to Ken's great-grandfather ended up on our guest's grandfather's shelf.

Ken Duer:

My first theory was maybe when my great-grandfather had passed away, the family just gave the book to a used bookstore or something. And then her great-grandfather happened to be a book collector, so he went to a used bookstore and picked it up.

Adam Monahan:

Then there is the tantalizing possibility that their ancestors actually knew each other.

Ken Duer:

I mean, if they find a picture of two of them together, there you go. That's the proof. But we're not there yet.

Adam Monahan:

They might not know the exact connection, but their ancestors definitely overlapped, at least in one major reference publication.

Guest:

So I randomly went to a nearby bookshelf in the house and I turned to Who's Who in Japan in 1915. Okay? The name we're trying to find out is Yin Duer. On page 22 is a little paragraph about Yin Duer. Aha.

54 pages away on page 76 is my grandfather and my great-grandfather. So there you go. That's how we're connected.

Adam Monahan:

Wow. So your ancestors, both yours and Ken's are in the same book about Who's Who in Japan in 1915.

Guest:

Correct. There you go.

Adam Monahan:

That's amazing.

Guest:

And then I had the book!

Adam Monahan:

Why are you so interested in finding your great-grandfather's history out, too? What is it that you're hoping to share?

Ken Duer:

In the United States, because this country is made up of immigrants, this is nothing unique. But in Japan it's quite unique. Japan had closed its door to the world for almost 400 years, and they gradually started to open with the modernization of Japan in the mid 1800s. And we still don't know why my great-grandfather left England and ended up in Japan.

But I think it's part of our hobby to find out where we came from, who we really are. It's just fascinating.

Adam Monahan:

And now that these two family historians are connected, they've joined on their journeys and become like family themselves.

Guest:

I really feel we're kindred spirits in this journey. I really feel that's how I'm going to end my emails from now on is Kindred Spirit.

Adam Monahan:

Isn't that wild?

Marsha Bemko:

It's wild. It's wild first that they watched the show and that they saw it and yay for telling us.

Adam Monahan:

I mean, if you turned the channel 30 seconds before that or you tuned in 30 seconds after it, you don't even see it. It's not on screen forever.

Marsha Bemko:

That's wild. That's great.

Adam Monahan:

And then the travels of Joseph Heco, he made it on a boat, was rescued. Made it to America, established a life, visited presidents. Went back to Japan, settled in Japan. The idea that somebody could live a life that big is astounding.

Marsha Bemko:

You know, there are lessons in that life. I mean, that's why history is the best of teachers. That's why we learn it. It connects us.

Adam Monahan:

It connects us. And the fact that this book connected these two people 150 years later is also pretty amazing.

Marsha Bemko:

It's amazing. It touches my heart.

Adam Monahan:

It's all because of us. We forwarded an email.

Marsha Bemko:

We've caused friendships, marriages, and who knows, maybe even divorces. But yeah, I love this one.

Adam Monahan:

Detours is a production of GBH in Boston and distributed by PRX. This episode was written and produced by Galen Bebe, edited and mixed by Ian Cox. Our assistant producer is Sarah Haracious. Jocelyn Gonzalez is the director of PRX Productions. Devin Maverick Robbins is the managing producer of podcasts for GBH. And Marsha Bemko is the executive producer of Detours. I'm your host and co-executive producer, Adam Monahan. Our theme music is Once in a Century Storm by Will Daley from the album National Growth. Thank you all for listening. Have a good one.

Adam Monahan:

GBH's Antiques Roadshow goes on the air every Monday at 8:00 PM, 7:00 Central. And on many Tuesdays we get emails from viewers hoping to get in contact with our guests. My boss on the show, Marsha Bemko, has seen a lot of these emails.

Marsha Bemko:

Yeah. Tuesday's a pretty active email day after a broadcast. Yep.

Adam Monahan:

Why are they trying to do that normally, Marsh?

Marsha Bemko:

Well, sometimes they want to talk to our guests because really often they want to buy what the guest owns. No, no, no, no. You're not going to pressure our owners to sell their stuff.

Adam Monahan:

Yeah. This is not the Home Shopping Network, people.

Marsha Bemko:

Leave our guest alone. They don't want to sell it anyway, so leave them alone.

Adam Monahan:

For the most part, yes, unless they do. But even then you don't get to talk to them.

Marsha Bemko:

Yep.

Adam Monahan:

But sometimes we do get an email that is worthy to connect the guests, in which case we won't pass them your information, but we will pass along your email to the guests and tell them, "We thought you'd be interested in hearing this or reading this from somebody who watched your appraisal on our show." Can you talk about that?

Marsha Bemko:

It's usually a scholarly pursuit and I mean, we once found a necklace that somebody wanted to reach out to the guest because they want a photo in their book because it's so rare. Stuff like that.

Adam Monahan:

Now we got one that certainly tickled our curiosity. This one was from the narrative of a Japanese books that we had that where was this? Crocker Art Museum. Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. Do you remember the item?

Marsha Bemko:

I remember the item, and I'll be honest, I knew this was coming, so I went and watched it this morning.

Video soundbite:

Anyone who cares about Japanese American history would find this to be kind of like the foundational book and rare enough as it is.

Marsha Bemko:

It was about the life of a early Japanese immigrant coming to America and the claim to it was is that he was the very first Japanese American. Did I remember that right, Adam?

Adam Monahan:

You are correct. The first, the very first Japanese American, Joseph Heco. And this is about him.

Video soundbite:

It's amazing.

It is amazing. I mean, you also think of he's a Japanese now American.

Adam Monahan:

So there was an emailer that saw the appraisal and thought, "I think I'm connected to this story."

Marsha Bemko:

Yeah, that is a forwardable email, so worthy. What happened though, Adam? I don't remember what happened when we put them in touch.

Adam Monahan:

In this episode, we'll go on a journey across the Pacific and back with Joseph Heco, an accidental explorer who had an incredible story. And then we'll meet our emailer whose fateful Roadshow encounter led him on a journey of his own.

I'm Adam Monahan, a producer with GVH's Antiques Roadshow, and this is Detour. Today, the first Japanese American.

When this episode's Roadshow guest, who asked that we not use her name, won tickets to our 2019 show in Sacramento, California, she went looking for something to bring in from her grandfather's book collection.

Her grandfather was a professor at Stanford University and he had an impressive library. Surely there had to be something significant in there, but at first glance nothing seemed right.

Guest:

Things are dogeared and underlined and no first editions. But then I found this set of books. This is different. It had what looked like old handwriting and a name in it. So I thought, "Let's take these."

Adam Monahan:

Our guest had selected a pair of thick red hardcovers with the title Narrative of a Japanese. She didn't know a lot about them, but they looked important. And in fact, they were. Our appraiser, Martin Gammon, saw that right away.

Martin Gammon:

Well, thank you so much for coming to the Roadshow today in Sacramento and bringing these fascinating volumes. Why don't you tell me a little bit about how you acquired them and where they came from?

Guest:

So my grandfather grew up in Japan and then became a teacher in Japan. He later became a professor at Stanford and I inherited his library.

Martin Gammon:

All right. Well, we were very excited to see them because not only are these two volumes extremely rare, they also have an incredible history.

Adam Monahan:

The author of these books was born but Hikozo Hamada, but he is better known today as Joseph Heco. His long journey began in 1850 when Heco was just a teenager, sailing off the coast of Japan.

Bob Oaks:

And as often happened in these days, his ship was caught in a storm, swept out to sea, lost his rudder, and floated hopelessly for 50 days.

Adam Monahan:

This is Bob Oaks, a docent at the Honolulu Museum of Art, an author of an article on Joseph Heco's life. Heco and his 16 or so crewmates were stranded somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, unable to sail home to Japan. But even if they had managed to reach the shore, they might not have been welcomed back.

Bob Oaks:

Japan from the 1630s until the 1850s was a closed society. It was a capital offense literally to leave Japan. It was also a capital offense to enter Japan.

So when you got lost at sea, if you wanted to go back home, you were committing two capital offenses and this was somewhat of a catch 22.

Adam Monahan:

Luckily, Heco's ship had a hefty supply of rice and the fuel to cook it, and with the fish they caught and the rainwater they collected, the crew managed to hang on for almost three months...

Until they happened upon an American cargo ship on its way from Hong Kong to San Francisco. Nobody on the Japanese ship knew English and nobody on the American ship knew Japanese, but one crew member was able to bridge the gap.

Bob Oaks:

It just so happened that the cook on this ship was Chinese, and even though they didn't speak the same languages, they wrote some of the same characters. So they were able to communicate more or less simply by writing things out.

Adam Monahan:

The ship landed in San Francisco in March of 1851. Heco was just 14 years old. For most Californians, Japanese sailors were a totally new and intriguing site. Heco and his crewmates were paraded around to a masquerade ball and toured through the offices of a local daily newspaper. But they were more than just a fun novelty. They were potentially a diplomatic asset.

Bob Oaks:

This is a time when the United States government was trying to open Japan. All the Americans wanted to trade with Japan. They wanted coding stations in Japan, et cetera.

And so some people thought, "Well, if we just send these people back home, the Japanese will be so grateful that they'll immediately open up their doors," which of course couldn't be farther from the truth.

Adam Monahan:

And so Heco's fate became tied to the government's agenda. In 1851, just months after the castaways arrived, President Millard Fillmore sent a Navy expedition to compel Japan to open a port where Americans could stop for supplies and fuel. Heco and his crewmates were sent to Hong Kong to join the expedition.

Bob Oaks:

By this time, Heco had made friends with an American named Thomas Troy and Troy wanted to learn Japanese and Heco wanted to learn English. And so they became sort of a symbiotic friendship. And so when they went back to Hong Kong, Heco persuaded Troy to come along, too.

Adam Monahan:

But things did not go according to plan. The ships they were supposed to meet up with were delayed and Heco was left floating once again.

Bob Oaks:

They were in Hong Kong for several months. It was awfully hot. They were confined to a ship. And so Troy said, "I want to go back to San Francisco. There's a gold rush going on for God's sake. Let's go make some money."

Adam Monahan:

So back to the United States they went. They didn't get into the gold rush. Instead, Troy found work on a ship and Heco got a job at a boarding house.

Bob Oaks:

But one day another captain he knew came walking up with a person in Japanese clothes. And Heco's first thought, "My God, I'm going to be arrested," because he thought it was somebody who was a Japanese official. But later realized this was simply another poor castaway sailor who fell to his knees crying when he found someone who could speak his language.

Adam Monahan:

The man was the only survivor of his ship's 12-man crew. They decided to bring him to the senior most member of the US government in San Francisco, a customs officer named Beverly Sanders. Sanders agreed to help the other castaway, and he was so impressed by Heco's ability to translate, he offered him a job.

Bob Oaks:

There wasn't any kind of managerial, but from Heco's perspective, he'd made it.

Adam Monahan:

Sanders took such a liking to Heco that when he went to the East Coast on business, he took the teenager with him. Along the way, Heco was introduced to new technologies like the telegraph and the steam engine. They went to New York City and then Baltimore. Heco even accompanied Sanders to the White House where he unexpectedly made history.

Bob Oaks:

They were waiting in an ante room. And much to Heco's surprise, the President walked in.

Adam Monahan:

President Franklin Pierce to be exact.

Bob Oaks:

All by himself, no guards, no bands, no trumpets, dressed just as they were dressed, no special clothes. And if that wasn't surprising enough, the president walked up to the two and shook their hands. My God, he touched them.

Adam Monahan:

Heco was struck by how informal the visit was. Later writing that in Japan, "Even the smallest district official has more pomp and splendor about his person than this man has." There might not have been the ceremony Heco expected, but it was a momentous occasion.

Heco was the first Japanese person to meet a US President, and it was a fortuitous time for this to happen because Heco's own life was once again strangely in sync with international relations.

The year Heco met the president was the same year that a famous American expedition finally reached the shores of Japan, led by Commodore Matthew Perry.

Bob Oaks:

Perry told the Shogun, who was the military dictator in Edo, which we now know as Tokyo, "I'm going to come back in a year with more ships, bigger guns, and I want to see your ports opened."

Adam Monahan:

A year later, Perry returned to receive Japan's answer, a reluctant yes. The two nations signed the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854, officially opening two ports to US ships and establishing a US Consulate in Japan. But they still hadn't achieved the elusive goal of opening a trade relationship between the two nations.

While all this is playing out, Heco was living in Baltimore with the family of Beverly Sanders, the customs agent who had given him a job. He was going to an American school improving his English, and he even went as far as to convert to the Sanders' religion, Roman Catholicism.

Bob Oaks:

And when he converted, the priest said, "Well, you need a saint's name." So he gave him several options and Heco said, "Joseph sounds pretty good." So henceforth, he's known as Joseph Heco.

Adam Monahan:

Now, as a point of clarification, Heco was not the first Japanese person to ever set foot on American soil.

Bob Oaks:

There was another famous teenager who preceded Heco. His name was Manjiro. And he was rescued by a whaling ship and he liked the life, so he became a whaler in Connecticut.

Adam Monahan:

Manjiro is generally considered to be the first Japanese immigrant to the United States arriving in 1843. Joseph Heco, however, made history in 1858 when he became the first Japanese-American citizen.

Bob Oaks:

A judge swore in Joseph Heco as the very first naturalized Japanese-American citizen, even though it raised eyebrows because the law at the time said citizenship was only open to white persons. So what is a Japanese? The judge apparently thought that this was sufficient, but others didn't.

Adam Monahan:

In fact, the US barred people of most racial backgrounds, including Japanese immigrants, from becoming naturalized US citizens. It would take almost a century for those racial barriers to finally come down with the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952.

But back to 1858, that's the year Joseph Heco became a US citizen. And it was also the year that Japan and the US signed that long sought after trade agreement. At that point, after nearly a decade in the us, Heco finally wound his way back to Japanese shores.

He got a job as a translator at the US Consulate and eventually started his own import/export business, working in part with his old business contacts in San Francisco.

And of course, everyone wanted to know the wild story of how he went from castaway to diplomatic asset to entrepreneur. So he wrote it down.

Video Soundbite:

I was very excited to see these because only three copies of this book have appeared in the auction market for the last 30 years. So they're very, very hard to find.

Adam Monahan:

The version of Heco's book that appeared on our show is a two volume set, hard cover bound, and in surprisingly good condition, it was an exciting moment for our appraiser and our guest alike.

Guest:

It was very emotional on a variety of different levels. Number one thing was to represent my family, my grandparents, but also my great grandparents.

Adam Monahan:

And then there was the significance of Joseph Heco himself in the history of American immigration.

Guest:

That's 1858. Okay? It's almost a hundred years later that all Japanese immigrants were accorded the right to be naturalized.

Adam Monahan:

So it's an extremely important book historically. What about monetarily?

Video Soundbite:

I would say conservatively that the pair would probably have an auction estimate of six to $8,000 in today's marketplace, and you probably could have them insured for at least $10,000.

Guest:

I was surprised. So part of my feeling was after the show was over, "Okay, what do I do now? Where do I take these? How do I preserve his story and pass it on?"

Adam Monahan:

The appraisal aired on our show a few months later.

Guest:

And in the subsequent months after that, a variety of people, "Hey, were you on Antiques Roadshow?" And then there's nothing for a while.

Then what's curious, they do re-air episodes. Randomly, they re-aired this one, and that's when the story takes a detour.

Adam Monahan:

After the break, a viewer recognizes something in the appraisal that our guest and appraiser didn't.

When our guest's appraisal appeared in a rerun, her story took a detour. Her words, not ours. The detour's name is Ken.

Ken Duer:

My name is Ken Duer. I reside in Los Angeles, California.

Adam Monahan:

So Ken, tell us about the surprise you got one time watching our program.

Ken Duer:

Okay, so last August, I just thought I am just going to take a 10-minute coffee break. Went into my family room, looked on my TV, and Antiques Roadshow was on it.

Video Soundbite:

So your grandfather collected Japanese books or books related to Japan and the Near East, is that right?

Ken Duer:

Automatically it got my attention because I was born and raised in Japan and they were explaining about the book.

Video:

So these books were published in Yokohama in 1895. And this particular two volume set is also inscribed by the author in the second volume dated 1895.

Ken Duer:

And then the page turned and it was a closeup of a handwritten note by the author and it said, Yin Duer. And I just couldn't believe my eyes.

Adam Monahan:

The inscription reads, "To Y. Duer, Esquire, with compliments of the author." Y. Duer was short for Yin Duer. And Ken knew that because Yin Duer was his great-grandfather.

Ken Duer:

I have a photo of my great-grandfather and the family by the dining area. I couldn't help myself but just to look around and like, "Are you trying to tell me something here?"

Adam Monahan:

Ken couldn't let this coincidence slip by.

Ken Duer:

I just thought that if I were able to make contact with this person that came on with the book, maybe I can get more information about my own great-grandfather; not to say, "Hey, this belonged to my great-grandfather." None of that. I was just so curious and just blown away by it.

Adam Monahan:

So Ken reached out. He emailed someone at GBH who emailed someone else, and eventually the request landed in our guest's inbox.

Guest:

I just kind of left it alone. I don't know. And so I didn't even want to open it. And then PBS contacted me again and I thought, "Okay, this sounds on the up and up. They've done the research. Sure."

Adam Monahan:

So tell me about your first contact with Ken. What did you guys discuss and what happened?

Guest:

So his emails were very supportive and excited and enthusiastic, and he was also very supportive of what I was going through, and I needed that. I feel that here's another person trying to get information of a time period where very few foreigners lived in Japan.

Adam Monahan:

Their ancestors were both part of that same small club of foreigners. So Ken and our guest started emailing and video calling, sharing the information they had about their relatives' stories; and trying to figure out how the heck a book inscribed to Ken's great-grandfather ended up on our guest's grandfather's shelf.

Ken Duer:

My first theory was maybe when my great-grandfather had passed away, the family just gave the book to a used bookstore or something. And then her great-grandfather happened to be a book collector, so he went to a used bookstore and picked it up.

Adam Monahan:

Then there is the tantalizing possibility that their ancestors actually knew each other.

Ken Duer:

I mean, if they find a picture of two of them together, there you go. That's the proof. But we're not there yet.

Adam Monahan:

They might not know the exact connection, but their ancestors definitely overlapped, at least in one major reference publication.

Guest:

So I randomly went to a nearby bookshelf in the house and I turned to Who's Who in Japan in 1915. Okay? The name we're trying to find out is Yin Duer. On page 22 is a little paragraph about Yin Duer. Aha.

54 pages away on page 76 is my grandfather and my great-grandfather. So there you go. That's how we're connected.

Adam Monahan:

Wow. So your ancestors, both yours and Ken's are in the same book about Who's Who in Japan in 1915.

Guest:

Correct. There you go.

Adam Monahan:

That's amazing.

Guest:

And then I had the book!

Adam Monahan:

Why are you so interested in finding your great-grandfather's history out, too? What is it that you're hoping to share?

Ken Duer:

In the United States, because this country is made up of immigrants, this is nothing unique. But in Japan it's quite unique. Japan had closed its door to the world for almost 400 years, and they gradually started to open with the modernization of Japan in the mid 1800s. And we still don't know why my great-grandfather left England and ended up in Japan.

But I think it's part of our hobby to find out where we came from, who we really are. It's just fascinating.

Adam Monahan:

And now that these two family historians are connected, they've joined on their journeys and become like family themselves.

Guest:

I really feel we're kindred spirits in this journey. I really feel that's how I'm going to end my emails from now on is Kindred Spirit.

Adam Monahan:

Isn't that wild?

Marsha Bemko:

It's wild. It's wild first that they watched the show and that they saw it and yay for telling us.

Adam Monahan:

I mean, if you turned the channel 30 seconds before that or you tuned in 30 seconds after it, you don't even see it. It's not on screen forever.

Marsha Bemko:

That's wild. That's great.

Adam Monahan:

And then the travels of Joseph Heco, he made it on a boat, was rescued. Made it to America, established a life, visited presidents. Went back to Japan, settled in Japan. The idea that somebody could live a life that big is astounding.

Marsha Bemko:

You know, there are lessons in that life. I mean, that's why history is the best of teachers. That's why we learn it. It connects us.

Adam Monahan:

It connects us. And the fact that this book connected these two people 150 years later is also pretty amazing.

Marsha Bemko:

It's amazing. It touches my heart.

Adam Monahan:

It's all because of us. We forwarded an email.

Marsha Bemko:

We've caused friendships, marriages, and who knows, maybe even divorces. But yeah, I love this one.

Adam Monahan:

Detours is a production of GBH in Boston and distributed by PRX. This episode was written and produced by Galen Bebe, edited and mixed by Ian Cox. Our assistant producer is Sarah Haracious. Jocelyn Gonzalez is the director of PRX Productions. Devin Maverick Robbins is the managing producer of podcasts for GBH. And Marsha Bemko is the executive producer of Detours. I'm your host and co-executive producer, Adam Monahan. Our theme music is Once in a Century Storm by Will Daley from the album National Growth. Thank you all for listening. Have a good one.