Edwin Dun

Agricultural adviser

Dun was hired in 1873 by Albert Capron, son of Horace Capron, to develop cattle and dairy farming in Hokkaidō. He brought about 50 cattle, 100 sheep, and agricultural implements to Japan, initially teaching animal husbandry and selective breeding to up to seventy government-assigned students at an experimental farm in Tokyo. After marrying a Japanese woman named Tsuru in 1875, he extended his contract despite the Hokkaidō Development Commission Scandal of 1881.

From 1876 to 1883 he lived in Sapporo, where he established horse ranches, introduced the first two thoroughbred stallions to Japan, operated a pig farm with 80 hogs from the United States, and set up a dairy farm with butter and cheese factories. He planted experimental crop lots, built Hokkaidō's first horse race track, and with Louis Boehmer founded a beer brewery that became the forerunner of Sapporo Breweries. Dun also initiated government policies using strychnine and bounties to eradicate wolves, leading to the extinction of the Hokkaidō wolf by 1895. He was a close friend and later brother-in-law of explorer Thomas Blakiston.

United States envoy to Japan

After a visit to the United States in 1883–84, Dun was appointed Second Secretary of the American Legation in Tokyo. Following the death of his wife Tsuru in October 1883, he married Yama Takahira at the end of that year. He was promoted to First Secretary and in 1892 was appointed U.S. envoy to Japan, serving from July 14, 1893 to July 2, 1897. During the First Sino-Japanese War, he facilitated peace negotiations by using American diplomatic channels for communication between Japan and China.