ページの本文です。
The Story of the Hiruma Ferry and Tokugawa Ieyasu
|
Title: |
The Story of the Hiruma Ferry and Tokugawa Ieyasu 昼間の渡しと徳川家康伝説 |
|
Category: |
Non-Designated Cultural Property |
|
Location: |
495-12 Iida-Shinden |
|
People used to rely ferries to cross over the river to reach the road that connected Omiya and Kawagoe. In Omiya, there was the Oibukuro Ferry in Hōrai, the Senjudō Ferry in Asuma (Nishi-Asuma), and the Hiruma Ferry which is recorded in local tradition. According to legend, in the Tensho era (late 16th century), Tokugawa Ieyasu, while traveling from Kawagoe to Iwatsuki, arrived at this ferry crossing after night had already fallen. Upon learning this, the villagers lit beacon fires and, each carrying pine torches in their hands, welcomed Ieyasu and his entourage. Impressed by the light, which was as bright as daytime, Ieyasu is said to have granted land near the riverbank to the ferry keeper and bestowed upon him the surname “Hiruma.” From the Edo period through the Taishō period, the area was used as Iida Riverbank (Iida-gashi), and it was lined with boatmen’s huts, raft lodgings, teahouses, and other facilities, creating a lively atmosphere. Toward the end of the Meiji period, when a prefectural road was newly built, the ferry crossing appears to have been relocated to the vicinity of the present-day Funatobashi Bridge. Today, due to river improvement works, the Shingashi River floodway now merges into the Binnuma River, and traces of the former Arakawa remain only in Yugi-chō and parts of Iida-Shinden. The stone Batō Kannon statue located within the grounds of Yakushidō (about 100 meters to the south) bears inscriptions reading, “Right: the road to Yono, Ōmiya, and Iwatsuki,” and “Left: the road to the Iida ferry crossing and across the river,” conveying that an old road once connected the area from east to west. |
|
|
Inquiries (Japanese only) |
|
|
https://www.city.saitama.lg.jp/nishi/001/003/001/002/p128038.html |
|