Miura Anjin Memorial Park.................................William Adams
Kyodo via Yahoo: Park honors Englishman's building of sailing ship 400 years ago
A park opened Thursday in Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Englishman William Adams' building of Japan's first Western-style sailing ship. The ceremony to open the Anjin Memorial Park, coming from the Japanese name of the Englishman, Miura Anjin, was attended by people such as Ito Mayor Toichiro Suzuki and Susan Haydock, mayor of Adams' hometown of Medway.
During the ceremony, a 5-meter-high bronze monument was unveiled, on which the story of Ito's status as the birthplace of the country's first Western-style sailing ship is inscribed. Local sculptor Kenji Shigeoka, who created the monument, said, "I am filled with deep emotion as a monument has been built at the same place as where Anjin stood."
Adams arrived in what is now Oita Prefecture in 1600 after a Dutch ship he was aboard landed there. He was hired by Tokugawa Shogun Ieyasu as an adviser on foreign affairs and built the 80-ton sailing ship in Ito in 1604
