The Meiji Maru was built in 1873 at the shipyard of Robert Napier and Sons in Govan, on the banks of the River Clyde in what is now part of Glasgow, Scotland. Napier's yard was legendary -- it had built some of the first iron-hulled steamships and supplied engines to the Royal Navy. The Japanese government commissioned the vessel as a lighthouse tender, a specialized ship designed to service and supply the network of lighthouses being constructed along Japan's coastline as part of the Meiji era modernization. She was launched as a two-masted vessel with both sail and steam propulsion, a practical hybrid suited to the long coastlines and unpredictable weather of the Japanese archipelago. The ship sailed from Scotland to Japan, arriving in a country that was rapidly transforming itself from a feudal society into a modern industrial state.

In 1876, Emperor Meiji chose the Meiji Maru for an inspection tour of northern Japan. The ship carried him from Aomori, on the northern tip of Honshu, across the Tsugaru Strait to Hakodate in Hokkaido, and then south along the Pacific coast to Yokohama. A specially decorated cabin was fitted for the emperor's exclusive use during the voyage. When the ship arrived in Yokohama on July 20, the event was significant enough that the date was later enshrined as a national holiday. Marine Day -- Umi no Hi -- originally fell on July 20 each year before being moved to the third Monday in July as part of Japan's Happy Monday system in 2003. The holiday celebrates Japan's identity as a maritime nation, and its origin lies in this single imperial voyage aboard a Scottish-built lighthouse tender.

After her years in the lighthouse service, the Meiji Maru was transferred in 1897 to the Tokyo Nautical School for use as a moored training ship. The following year, in 1898, she was re-rigged as a full-rigged ship by the Shomei Shipbuilding Company in Shinagawa, her original two-masted configuration replaced with a taller, more complex rig befitting a vessel used to teach cadets the art of seamanship. The Tokyo Nautical School eventually became part of the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, and the ship remained on campus through each institutional transformation. Generations of Japanese merchant marine officers trained aboard her decks, learning the ropes -- literally -- on a ship that had once carried their emperor.

In 1964, the Meiji Maru was moved to permanent display at the university campus and preserved as a memorial. The decision recognized what time had quietly confirmed: this was no ordinary ship. An eight-year restoration beginning in 1980 was completed in 1988, returning the vessel to something close to her original appearance. In 1978, the Meiji Maru received designation as an Important Cultural Property, the only ship in Japan to hold the distinction. Today she sits on the Etchujima Campus in Koto Ward, her black hull and rigged masts rising above the campus grounds near the waterfront. The emperor's cabin remains aboard, preserved exactly as it was when Meiji himself sat inside. The ship is open to visitors, admission is free, and the campus integrates the vessel into the surrounding waterfront landscape. A ship built to tend lighthouses ended up becoming one herself -- a fixed beacon marking the point where Japan's maritime past meets its present.