Manjiro Nakahama was born in a fishing village in what is now Tosashimizu, Japan in 1827. As with many youngsters in that town, he became a fisherman. One day in 1841 he and several of his fellow fishermen were caught in a storm at sea and shipwrecked on a small deserted island far off the coast of Japan. Nearly six months later, a whaleship , the John Howland, sailing out of the port of New Bedford, happened upon the island and rescued the stranded fishermen. Four of the five Japanese were put ashore in Hawaii, but the fifth, fourteen-year-old Manjiro, had become friends with the commander of the ship, Captain William Whitfield of Fairhaven. Manjiro chose to remain aboard and sailed back to New Bedford with the captain and crew of the John Howland. Thus he unwittingly became the first Japanese to come to the United States to live. As yet only a teenager, Manjiro, (now known as John Manjiro or John Mung), lived with the Whitfield family and attended school in their hometown of Fairhaven. Eventually he returned to these a and finally found his way back after many adventures, including a stint as a Forty-Niner in the California Gold Rush. He served an invaluable role as a teacher and interpreter during the initiation of relations between Japan and the United States.

Just as the descendants of John Manjiro and Captain Whitfield have remained close friends since that first contact, it is the hope of the sister-city committee to carry and expand this relationship between Fairhaven/New Bedford and Tosashimizu.