page_title: Gyokusen-ji
section_title: Foreign cemetery
hierarchical_section_title: Gyokusen-ji / History / Foreign cemetery
caption_attribution_description: English: Lithograph of "Shimoda as seen from the American Grave Yard" looking towards the harbor -- artist, Wilhelm Heine (1856).
context_page_description: Gyokusen-ji is a small Buddhist temple in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is noteworthy in that it served as the first American consulate in Japan. The temple and its grounds were designated as a National Historic Site of Japan in 1951.
context_section_description: Five Americans and three Russians who died in Shimoda in the 1850s are buried in the temple cemetery. The five Americans buried at Gyokusen-ji are recorded as:
  Robert Williams, US Marine private who died from a fever while serving on the USS Mississippi (b. Hebron, Connecticut, d. 6 March 1854, aged 21). Williams body had initially been interred in Yokohama in a Christian burial service conducted by Revd. George Jones on the 9 March 1854. After the signing of the Convention of Kanagawa on 31 March 1854, a decision was made to relocate his grave to Shimoda, the designated treaty port, prior to the fleet's departure in June.
  G.W. Parish, USN sailor who died in a fall from rigging while serving on the USS Powhatan (d. 5 May 1854, aged 24)
  Jas. Hamilton, USN Assistant Surgeon on the USS Susquehanna (d. 6 September 1854, aged 38)
  John D. Storm, USN fireman serving on the USS Powhatan (b. Schoharie County, New York, d. 2 February 1855, aged 27)
  Alexander Doonan, US Marine serving on the USS Mississippi (d. 31 July 1858)
caption: Foreign cemetery at Shimoda, Japan, 1854. Lithograph first published in 1856 by Wilhelm Heine
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