Mitsui Hachiroemon

Wooden store sign for the Echigo-ya, run by the successive heads of the Mitsui family. Replica on display at National Museum of Japanese History

A view of one of the rooms in the home of the 11th Mitsui Hachirôemon, now located at the Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum

• Japanese: 三井八郎右衛門 (Mitsui Hachirouemon)

Mitsui Hachirôemon was a name passed down between heads of the Edo period currency exchange & dry goods wholesaling business which later developed into the Mitsui zaibatsu corporation. The Mitsui shop was also an official purveyor (goyô shônin) to the shogunate.

Heads of the business came from eleven different households, who shared property/ownership between them, with each company head taking on the name Mitsui Hachirôemon in turn. They included:

• Takahira, second head of the Kita family, credited with establishing the family codes and records of family history
• Takatomi, first head of the Isarago family, credited with establishing the organization/policies of the shop
• Takaharu, first head of the Shinmachi family, credited with combining the family codes and business records
• Takafusa, third head of the Kita family, credited with compiling the chônin kôken roku
• Takakata, second head of the Shinmachi family
• Takami, fourth head of the Kita family
• Takayo, third head of the Shinmachi family
• Takanori, third head of the Isarago family
• Takakiyo, fifth head of the Kita family
• Takasuke, sixth head of the Kita family
• Takaga, fifth head of the Shinmachi family
• Takamasu, sixth head of the Shinmachi family
• Takafuku, eighth head of the Kita family, credited with the revival of the business around the time of the Meiji Restoration
• Takarô, ninth head of the Kita family
• Takamune, tenth head of the Kita family, credited with establishing the business as a zaibatsu in the modern sense
• Takakimi, eleventh head of the Kita family

A home belonging to the 11th Mitsui Hachirôemon, Mitsui Takakimi, stands today in the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum. Originally built in the Nishi-azabu neighborhood of Minato-ku, Tokyo, in 1952, it incorporates a guest room and dining room built on Aburanokôji in Kyoto in 1897 and then relocated to Tokyo; the storehouse attached to the house also dates to the early Meiji period - specifically, 1874. Fusuma (sliding door) paintings in the home were completed in the Meiji period by artists of the Maruyama-Shijô school.

References

• Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum, English language brochure/pamphlet (2010), p6.
• "Mitsui Hachirôemon," Sekai daihyakka jiten 世界大百科事典, Hitachi Solutions, 2012.
• Plaque on-site at Mitsui Hachirôemon Residence, Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum.