The Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony is believed to be the first permanent Japanese settlement in North America and the only settlement by samurai outside of Japan. The group was made up of 22 people from samurai families during the Boshin Civil War (1868–69) in Japan preceding the Meiji Restoration. The group purchased land from Charles Graner family in the Gold Hill region after coming to San Francisco in 1869. Though the group was able to successfully show their produce during the 1869 California State Agricultural Fair in Sacramento and the 1870 Horticultural Fair in San Francisco, the farm as a Japanese colony only existed between 1869 and 1871.