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International Section of the NH Bar Association Honors Charles Doleac, Esq.
with 2015 Daniel Webster International Lawyer of the Year award

Concord, New Hampshire (November 20, 2015) -- The International Section of the NH Bar Association has honored Attorney Charles B. Doleac, senior partner at Boynton, Waldron, Doleac, Woodman & Scott PA in Portsmouth NH, with its 2015 Daniel Webster International Lawyer of the Year award.  Attorney Doleac is the tenth New Hampshire lawyer to receive this award since its inception in 2005.  In making the presentation at a ceremony on November 17^th, Bob Cheney of Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green PA, Section chair, noted “This award recognizes a New Hampshire lawyer whose contributions to international law demonstrate the spirit of Daniel Webster and whose good works elevate the standing of the legal profession and serve as an inspiration to others.  Besides building a practice that ranges from general corporate work to litigation to international transactions at the firm where he has worked for over 40 years, Chuck has spent much of the last 25 years preserving and promoting the memory and meaning of the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth and its importance to the concept of multi-track diplomacy.” 

Doleac presented an hour-long program and discussion with members of the International Section on the Treaty and the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 (identified by scholars as “World War Zero”).  Describing the Treaty of Portsmouth as “the beginning of the end of colonial imperialism,” he recounted how Seacoast citizens welcomed the Russian and Japanese negotiators to Portsmouth – without picking sides or favorites – and then engaged constantly with them in numerous local venues over the course of August 1905 to keep the negotiators in Portsmouth and in a positive frame of mind.  The outcome was a peace treaty for the Russian and Japanese empires, the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for US President Theodore Roosevelt, and an enduring legacy for the City of Portsmouth. He summarized his message to the Section as “Individual citizens can make a difference, even when it comes to international diplomacy.” 

Cheney commented, “One cannot underestimate what Chuck has done.  In 1988, he founded the Japan-America Society of New Hampshire and throughout 1990’s was the prime mover in organizing a series of four peace treaty forums with scholars and dignitaries from Russia, Japan and the US. 

“That was just the beginning of his efforts to educate the citizens of NH and beyond regarding the significance and continued validity of multi-track diplomacy,” he continued. Attorney Doleac had a lead role in the 100^th and 105^th anniversaries of the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth – which enjoyed broad support on the seacoast and helped to spin off documentaries, school curricula, the Portsmouth Peace Treaty Trail, and a new NH statute that each year now honors September 5 as “Portsmouth Peace Treaty Day.”  In 2011, for these efforts the Emperor of Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette. 

Cheney went on to note that Attorney Doleac’s twenty-five years of effort educating and reminding citizens here and abroad that “individuals do make a difference” and that something special happened in Portsmouth in the summer of 1905 paid off in a big way in 2015.  “Following afternoon celebrations and tolling of church bells in Portsmouth on September 5 this past year, there was an exceptional reception at Wentworth by the Sea Hotel,” he said.  “The program included viewing a documentary of participants in the 100^th anniversary recounting their interest and involvement in the commemorations and Treaty history.  What made it especially memorable was that we had Russian and Japanese diplomats in the same room where the Japanese hosted a reception for their Russian counterparts on the eve of the Treaty signing.  It took 110 years to get them together again in NH – and our 2015 Daniel Webster International Lawyer of the Year was the chief architect behind that effort.”

A delegation from Nihonmatsu, Japanese Suster City to Hanover NH
participated in the planting of Hanover's cherry tree in honor of Kan'ichi Asakawa.

Japan-America Society of NH Celebrates 110th Anniversary with Portsmouth Peace Treaty Living Memorial Tree Plantings Around the State

Portsmouth, New Hampshire -- The large cherry trees that bloom so abundantly each spring at City Hall  Portsmouth were planted in 1985, thanks to a gift from Nichinan, Japan – Portsmouth’s Sister City and the hometown of Baron Jutaro Komura, the lead Japanese diplomat at the 1905 peace conference that led to the Portsmouth Peace Treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War.  Portsmouth Peace Treaty Living Memorial trees are located in Portsmouth surrounding the South Mill Pond at City Hall and in front of the Portsmouth Middle School, at Wentworth By the Sea Hotel, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and in the Community Garden at Strawbery Banke Museum.

To receive a cherry tree, each location has agreed to:

• Host a public program, “Teddy Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize and the Portsmouth Peace Treaty” by NH Humanities council scholar Charles B. Doleac, to understand the history of NH citizen diplomacy
• Plant and maintain the tree in a protected spot
• Commemorate Portsmouth Peace Treaty Day on September 5^th with bell-ringing at 3:47 pm.

Portsmouth Peace Treaty Living Memorial Trees were also planted in 2015 around the state in:

• Hanover – where Japanese student Kan’ichi Asakawa attended Dartmouth College. He later wrote The Causes of the Russo-Japanese War and was funded by Dartmouth President William Tucker to travel to Portsmouth to observe the 1905 peace conference. Tree is located at Hanover Town Hall.
•  Dublin – where Japanese Ambassador and public affairs liaison Baron Kentaro Kaneko frequently visited residents and G. B. Putnam & Sons publisher Joseph and Corinna Smith, whom he had met as friends of Theodore Roosevelt in 1901. Tree is located at the Dublin Historical Society Schoolhouse Museum.
• Manchester – where Baron Komura and Japanese newspapermen were entertained by local businessmen and other dignitaries during their stay in New Hampshire for the peace conference. Tree is located at the Gen. John Stark Memorial in Stark Park.
• Lancaster – boyhood home of Henry Willard Denison, chief legal counsel to the Japanese Foreign Ministry, who accompanied the Japanese delegation to Portsmouth in 1905. Tree is located in Cross Park opposite the Weeks Public Library. Col. Edward Cross was commander of the famed NH 5^th Regiment during the Civil War and was Denison’s father-in-law.
• Meredith – where Jutaro Komura spent a summer “rusticating” on a local farm between semesters at Harvard.
• Littleton – host to a 2015 NH Humanities Council program, “Teddy Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize” presented by Charles B. Doleac, president of JASNH and chair of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty Forum. To receive a Portsmouth Peace Treaty Living Memorial Cherry Tree, towns must agree to care for the tree, to host the NH Humanities Council program that explains the Treaty history, and to commemorate Portsmouth Peace treaty Day on September 5^th by ringing bells each year at 3:47 pm on that date, the day the Treaty was signed in Portsmouth in 1905.
• Portsmouth – Temple Israel, founded in October 1905 after its founding members were among the Portsmouth merchants who welcomed the diplomats to Portsmouth and, as Russian-Jewish emigres, were the only townspeople who could speak Russian to the delegation.

In 2012, the 100^th anniversary of the gift of the iconic Washington DC cherry trees to the US by Japan, the Japan-America Society of New Hampshire (JASNH) learned that those famous trees were a direct result of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, negotiated in Portsmouth NH in 1905, ending the Russo-Japanese War.  Research showed that the Mayor of Tokyo, Yukio Ozaki, who facilitated the cherry tree gift, described in his autobiography a desire to thank the US for its role in ending the War. That conclusion resulted in a 2012 op-ed in the Washington Post by the Ambassador of Japan to the US and the JASNH being designated to receive cherry trees descended from the Washington trees in commemoration of the 100^th anniversary of the diplomatic gift.

“In 2012, the Japan America Society of New Hampshire began planting those trees at key sites related to the Treaty history, as a living memorial to the Portsmouth Peace Treaty and the citizen diplomacy involved in reaching the successful conclusion.  Although President Theodore Roosevelt never came to Portsmouth, having promised Japan and Russia that he would not be at the table, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906, for orchestrating the negotiations,” said Charles B. Doleac, president of the Japan-America Society of NH.  “By planting descendants of the iconic Washington cherry trees that are a living connection to the Treaty around New Hampshire, we create a living memorial to the Treaty and citizen diplomacy.”

2015 is the 110^th anniversary of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty. In addition to the planting of the cherry trees and the Portsmouth Peace Treaty Day bell-ringing ceremony on September 5^th, the JASNH will be updating the exhibit at the John Paul Jones House Museum with new artifacts and details about the cherry trees and the legacy of the Treaty commemorations since the 100^th anniversary in 2005.

For more information about the Portsmouth Peace Treaty and the cherry trees, visit www.portsmouthpeacetreaty.org