I am researching several portrait photos of Japanese students who were sent to the U.S. during the 1870s and who lived at various locations in New England.
On the back of one photo there are three small columns of Japanese kanji shodo (calligraphy) which I've scanned, enlarged, and uploaded to a Google Drive at the following url:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B79zxdt-CItzRWQtTmFTeFBhTXc/view?pref=2&pli=1This was likely added by the student pictured on the front of the photo to commemorate living at, returning to, or visiting a location in New England during the 1871 to 1877 time frame that the image was taken.
So far suggestions have included:
1. The right column likely includes characters denoting "Amerika".
2. The center column includes characters similar to 於ボストン that may say "Bosuton ni oite"; "in Boston"; or "at the Boston...".
3. The lower character in the left column may be 返 which means "return" or "answer".
A 3rd party publication that lists the student's names and locations includes several Boston street addresses; however, I've net yet identified the specific student yet so the kanji inscription might help narrow it down.
Translations Problems:
1. This is a highly decorative form of writing that has changed over time, thus they can be hard to read by someone even with decades of experience.
2. Part of the student's training included learning English so there may have been an error in the original translation of English into Kanji. This was evident on the back of another photo whereas a phrase was written in English, but not in the correct order as native speaker would write them.
