Robert Walker Irwin

In 1866, at the age of 22, Robert Irwin arrived in Japan to head the Yokohama office of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.

By the 1870s, Hawaii had suffered significant population declines due to the introduction of diseases to which Hawaiian natives had no immunity.

Irwin arranged for and accompanied the first 943 government-contracted Kanyaku Imin, or Japanese laborers, who arrived in Honolulu aboard the Pacific Mail Steamship Company City of Tokio on February 8, 1885.

[1] Irwin cultivated a number of business and government contacts in Japan becoming acquainted with Japanese Finance Minister Masuda Takashi in 1872.

He also became good friends with Japanese Count Inoue Kaoru, who had toured the United States with Irwin in 1876 and became a major force for modernization within Japan.

That residence is a designated Historic Place and is open to the public as a small museum to the Irwin family and Japanese emigration to Hawaii.