The Smallest Building on the List
The Former Mitobe Family Residence (旧三戸部家住宅, read Mitobe-ke Jutaku; registered under the fuller name 旧三戸部家住宅（北海道有珠郡伊達町）) is a thatched settler's farmhouse in Umemoto-cho, Date City, Hokkaido, dated to around 1887 by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and designated an Important Cultural Property on 28 December 1971.
The parenthesis in the official name preserves an address that no longer exists. In December 1971 the place was Date Town in Usu District. The town became Date City the following April, four months after the designation went through, and the register has carried the older wording ever since.
Measured against most Important Cultural Properties this is a very small object. The frame runs 9.1 metres along the ridge and 6.4 metres across, roughly 58 square metres of floor, hipped roof, thatch. Inside there is an earth-floored work space and two rooms. That is the whole building. No temple hall, no keep, no merchant's townhouse; a cottage that a farming family lived in.
The families who built houses like this had not been farmers for long. When the Boshin War ended badly for the Sendai domain, the Watari Date house lost almost everything, and its fifteenth head, Date Kunishige, applied to the new government for permission to move north. Permission for Usu District came in the eighth month of 1869. No money came with it, so the family sold heirlooms, ornaments and personal effects to pay the passage. Nine separate parties crossed between 1870 and 1881, about 2,700 people according to the city's own count. They arrived as retainers of a broken house and set about clearing forest.
Carpentry Under Pressure
The reason a building this modest sits on the national list has to do with what it is evidence of. Colonial-era farmhouses in Hokkaido were built cheaply, worked hard and pulled down when they wore out. Very few survive from the first two decades of settlement, and the Agency's assessment treats this one as a rare surviving example of the pioneer farmhouse of that moment.
The frame itself carries the second half of the argument. For a building of this size the members are heavy: the timber scantlings are thicker than the span requires, and the assessment singles out the quality of the framing. Local accounts add that the wood was dressed with an adze rather than a plane and that the house was assembled without a single nail, in the manner of the Senzan district of the old Sendai domain. Those details do not appear in the national database, so treat them as the received local account rather than as documented fact. The walls are said to have been finished in rough earth plaster, and the roof extended about 90 centimetres beyond the front wall to throw off rain and snow, with a sliding entrance door at the left-hand end.
There is a further point in the Agency's note that is easy to skim past. The plan of this house resembles the standard tondenhei cottage, the issued dwelling of Hokkaido's soldier-settler militia, which was built later. A private house put up by a displaced samurai family turns out to anticipate the layout the state would later adopt for its own colonists. Whether that reflects shared Tohoku carpentry habits or something more direct is not settled.
Sources disagree about when it went up. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives about 1887. Date City's own page words it tersely as the latter Meiji-10s, which reads as the mid-1880s and sits close to the Agency's figure. A standard Japanese place-name reference puts construction at 1872, fifteen years earlier, and some travel listings repeat that figure. The 1887 date is the one carried by the primary record.
Seeing It: Exterior Only, and No Charge
Be clear about this before travelling. Date City states plainly that only the exterior can be viewed, that the building may be looked at freely at any time, and that there is no public access to the inside. Older travel listings that promise a look at the hearth and the settlers' tableware are describing an arrangement that no longer applies. There is no telephone at the building and no admission fee. Enquiries go to the city education board's cultural properties section on 0142-82-3299.
The house was moved to its present spot in 1969 from Hagiwara-cho, elsewhere in the city, and set in the garden of what was then the Date Pioneer Memorial Hall. That garden is now part of Date Rekishi no Mori, a park that also holds the Date Municipal Museum of History and Culture at Umemoto-cho 57-1, open 09:00 to 17:00 and closed Mondays and over the new year. The museum opened on 3 April 2019 and is where the city's Watari Date collections are shown. Parking for the farmhouse is the South No. 3 lot, thirty spaces.
Walking from JR Date-Monbetsu Station takes about twenty to twenty-five minutes. Date sits on the Uchiura Bay coast between Sapporo and Hakodate and gets noticeably less snow than most of Hokkaido, which is one reason the Watari Date party chose it. Cherry trees stand around the house, so the first half of May is a good window. The city publishes no restriction on photographing the exterior.
Stand at the front and give the eaves a minute. The projecting roof, the low wall line, the small openings: every decision here is about shedding weather and keeping heat, made by people who had been in the country for perhaps fifteen years and were still learning what a Hokkaido winter does to a building.
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Q&A
- Can the interior of the Former Mitobe Family Residence be visited?
- No. Date City states that only the exterior can be seen and that there is no public access to the inside. The exterior may be viewed freely at any time and there is no charge. Some older travel pages describe interior displays; that arrangement no longer applies.
- Where exactly is the Former Mitobe Family Residence, and how do I reach it?
- It stands at Umemoto-cho 61-2 in Date City, inside the Date Rekishi no Mori park beside the Date Municipal Museum of History and Culture. From JR Date-Monbetsu Station the walk takes about twenty to twenty-five minutes. Use the South No. 3 car park, which has thirty spaces.
- Why is the Former Mitobe Family Residence an Important Cultural Property when it is so small?
- Because almost nothing survives from the first decades of Hokkaido's settlement. The Agency for Cultural Affairs treats it as a rare surviving example of a pioneer farmhouse from the Watari Date migration, and singles out the unusually heavy framing of what is a very small building.
- When was the Former Mitobe Family Residence built, and why do sources disagree?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs records about 1887. Date City words it as the latter Meiji-10s, which points to the mid-1880s. A standard place-name reference gives 1872 instead, and travel listings often repeat that. The primary record supports the later date.
- Has the Former Mitobe Family Residence always stood where it is now?
- No. It was built in what is now the Hagiwara-cho area of Date City and moved in 1969 into the garden of the former Pioneer Memorial Hall, the site now occupied by the Date Rekishi no Mori park. The designation followed two years after the move.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Mitobe Family Residence (旧三戸部家住宅); registered as 旧三戸部家住宅（北海道有珠郡伊達町） |
|---|---|
| Location | Umemoto-cho 61-2, Date City, Hokkaido |
| Designation | Important Cultural Property (Structures), category modern period / dwelling, designation number 01820 |
| Year Designated | 28 December 1971 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | 9.1 metres along the ridge by 6.4 metres across, hipped roof, thatched; about 58 square metres |
| Owner | Date City |
| Public Access | Exterior viewing only, free and unrestricted; no interior access. Enquiries: Date City Board of Education, cultural properties section, 0142-82-3299 |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Former Mitobe Family Residence
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/102/24
- Cultural Heritage Online, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Former Mitobe Family Residence
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/120834
- Date City — Former Mitobe Family Residence, facility information
- https://www.city.date.hokkaido.jp/hotnews/detail/00001597.html
- Date City — History of the town, the Watari Date migration
- https://www.city.date.hokkaido.jp/hotnews/detail/00001367.html
- Date City — Date Municipal Museum of History and Culture
- https://www.city.date.hokkaido.jp/hotnews/detail/00005836.html
Last verified: 2026.08.27