Oguri Jukichi

Oguri Jukichi (小栗重吉, 1785-1853) was one of the first Japanese citizens known to have reached present day California. He and his fourteen-man crew, bound for Edo, were sailing off the Japanese coast in 1813 when their ship, the Tokujomaru, was disabled in a storm. The ship floated across the Pacific Ocean until Oguri and two surviving crew members were rescued by an American ship off the California coast near Santa Barbara in 1815.