Joseph Heco - Business Career

Business Career

On January 3, 1867 Heco went to Nagasaki to look after the business of an American friend, A. D. Weld French, who was leaving Japan. He registered at the U.S. Consulate in Nagasaki as an American citizen. Later in the month, the daimyō of Hizen asked Heco to be his agent in Nagasaki. On May 13, Heco also went to work for Glover & Co. One of the partners, K.R. Mackenzie, asked Heco to help acquire the rights to the Takashima coal mine. Eventually, however, with Heco's assistance, Mackenzie and Glover overcame various problems to establish a partnership.

In June 1867, Kido Koin and Itō Hirobumi (Chōshū samurai) called upon Heco under the guise of being Satsuma officials, and asked questions about the United States and England, especially regarding the U.S. Constitution. In October, they called again and asked Heco to serve as their agent in Nagasaki. He did so for two years without remuneration. Heco later helped Itō visit England with the assistance of British Admiral Henry Keppel of the H.M.S. Salamis.

On January 1, 1868 Kobe was opened as a treaty port and, according to Heco, "Yokohama, Nagasaki, and the China ports all sent their quota of bearded foreigners on the hunt for the Almighty Dollar." Heco described these early days of 1868 as troubled times. "Wild and disquieting rumours of the happenings in Kyoto and Osaka were ever arriving."

In February 1868, the victorious forces of the Boshin War of the Meiji Restoration promised that they would not harm foreigners in Nagasaki. Heco went with Francis Groom of Glover & Co. to Osaka to negotiate the transfer of the CSS Stonewall to the Japanese government. That summer Heco was asked to find a Western physician for the daimyō of Hizen. He found Dr. Samuel Boyer of the U.S.S. Iroquois. Heco moved between Nagasaki and Osaka at this time and reported on the rice riots of 1869. In February 1870 the Japanese government began to persecute the 3000 Christians from Urakami, and Glover & Co. went bankrupt.

"In the month of August the firm I had been serving since 1867 failed all of a sudden. The first meeting of creditors was held at the English Consulate in Nagasaki on the 16th Sept., and on the 19th, the firm laid a full statement of affairs before them."

In October, Heco accompanied Mackenzie to Kobe. He was soon back in Nagasaki, leasing a house on the bund and began a business as a commercial agent. He also was appointed by the daimyō of Hizen to look after his interests in the Takashima coal mine. Visiting the daimyo in Kobe, in 1871, he stayed a month. Then in December, he went with Thomas Glover to visit the daimyō of Kumamoto at his castle, but the daimyō was away at the time. They still, however, received a tour of the castle before returning to Nagasaki.

In May 1872, Heco received an offer to work under Inoue Kaoru, the Minister of Finance. He left Nagasaki in early August to do so. However, he had the opportunity to witness the Meiji Emperor's visit to Nagasaki on July 19 before he left. Heco stayed with the Finance Ministry until the beginning of 1874, when he left of his own accord. In May 1875 Heco went to work in Kobe, where he remained until becoming ill in 1881. Heco died in 1897. As an American he was buried in the foreign section of Aoyama Cemetery in Aoyama, Tokyo.