Chatham Resident’s Ancestor Is Japanese Baseball’s Founding Father

CHATHAM – During the second half of the 19th century, the great-great uncle of Chip Hardy, a current Chatham resident, traveled to Japan. How Horace Wilson, a veteran of the Civil War from Gorham, Maine, was enlisted to teach English there during the Meiji Restoration, or how he even learned Japanese, is unknown.

What is known — accepted as history, at least — is that one day in 1872 at the school where he taught, Wilson introduced the game of baseball to his students. He is considered the founder and father of the sport in Japan. 

Hardy’s family only found out about their ancestor’s overseas enterprise, and his standing in Japanese history, about 25 years ago, when a group from Japan approached them at the Gorham farmhouse where Wilson once lived.

“He was really a mystery man until the Japanese got a hold of my family at the farm,” Hardy said.

In the 150 years since Wilson brought the bat-and-ball game to his students during a break in classes, Japan has developed into a baseball-crazed nation, a global leader in the sport. During the World Series this fall, two Japanese players — Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto — captivated millions with their superhuman heroics as they lifted the Los Angeles Dodgers to another championship. 

Hardy’s forebear from Maine, his mother’s great-uncle, planted that seed. Wilson is Japan’s Abner Doubleday, with a whole lot better historical credibility. He was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003. A duplicated Hall of Fame plaque sits in the farmhouse.

“He's revered to this day,” Hardy said.

In 2000, a Japanese contingent visited Hardy’s relatives in Maine to invite them back to the country where Wilson had introduced baseball. A picture of Wilson, born in 1843, hung in the farmhouse, but the family had no idea about the story. His letters back home, as he taught in Japan, mentioned nothing of baseball.

The relatives — a group that included Hardy’s cousin, her husband and their daughter — in turn traveled to Japan, where they were escorted around the country like VIPs. There’s another plaque in the farmhouse from around that time, dedicated in August 2001 by the Japan High School Baseball Federation and the Asahi Shimbun Company, a newspaper. 

“In 1872, Mr. Horace Wilson taught baseball to the students at what is presently Tokyo University,” the panel reads. “This was the beginning of baseball in Japan. We would like to offer this plaque in heartfelt thanks.”

Hardy didn’t join that trip to Japan 25 years ago, but he did participate in another commemoration of his great-great uncle earlier this year. In February, Boston Red Sox designated hitter Masataka Yoshida visited Wilson’s farmhouse, a close to 200-year-old home, with Seiichiro Takahashi, the consul general of Japan in Boston. 

The visit was part of a broader event honoring Wilson attended by Mark Dion, the mayor of Portland, Ellie Sato, a Maine state representative, Ryan Shaffer, president of the Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C., and Jacqueline Edmondson, president of the University of Southern Maine. Hardy took a picture with Yoshida. 

“It was a big deal in that old farmhouse,” Hardy said.

In July, the Portland Sea Dogs — the Double-A affiliate of the Red Sox — held a “Japan Night,” which specifically paid tribute to Wilson. Members of the “Horace Wilson Memorial Committee” were recognized pregame, and one of Hardy’s relatives threw out the first pitch in a ceremony attended by Takahashi, Dion and Sato. On Nov. 24, Takahashi met again with the Horace Wilson Memorial Committee in Portland.

Wilson moved to San Francisco upon returning from Japan. He died in 1927. The house in Gorham — with the plaques, the visits, the history — has become something of a shrine to Wilson, according to Hardy, who used to spend summers at the farm.

“It's very neat to think that this little place in Maine had such an impact,” Hardy said. “I mean, he taught them the game of baseball, and it really took.”