Although it still is a subject of controversy among historians, there is a claim that a Chinese Buddhist, named Hui Sien, arrived in North America long before Christopher Columbus’ recorded crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in 1492. Hui Sien is reported to have crossed the Pacific and landed somewhere near what is now Vancouver, Canada, in 499 A.D.

This is the story told in “Steel of Empire”, a book about the Canadian Pacific Railroad by John Murray Gibbon, who wrote it more than 30 years ago.

Regardless of this, there is documentary proof that the first Chinese to arrive in America after the Revolutionary War did so in 1785. There were three Chinese stranded in Baltimore by their captain, a John O’Donnel of the ship "Pallas" in August, 1785. Their signatures are on a petition which is now in the Library of Congress. The petition was addressed to the Continental Congress.

The first Chinese reported to have landed on the Pacific Coast of America came to San Francisco on the brig "Eagle" in 1843. They were two men and a woman.

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 was the cause for a large contingent of Chinese to leave their native land in search of fortune. In the 1880s they numbered around 110,000, but this figure dwindled to less than 60,000 throughout the country by 1925. The largest group remained here on the West Coast.

There were many Chinatowns in the West, especially in mining areas and on railroad routes. But after the completion of the transcontinental railroads in 1869 and reduction of mining, these communities diminished as their inhabitants left for employment opportunities elsewhere.

Marysville, for a city its size, has a fairly large and stable Chinatown, and certainly one studded with rich Chinese history. Its original "Joss House", or Bok Kai Temple, was built in 1854 within five years after the arrival of the first Chinese fortune hunters in California.

Wherever the early Chinese settled in California in any numbers, a temple was generally erected to provide for the spiritual needs of its members.

After falling into a state of disrepair, the Marysville temple was relocated on former public bathhouse property, purchased by the Chinese Community, at the corner of Front and D Streets. Built by a handful of faithful members, the new Bok Kai Temple was completed and dedicated in March, 1880.

Marysville’s Chinatown, one of the oldest in America, numbers among the first half dozen still in existence. The Chinese here observed Bomb Day jointly with the City of Marysville for the first time in 1930. Prior to that time, the Chinese community commemorated Bomb Day by itself.

Except for Chinese New Year’s celebrations, it is believed Marysville’s Bomb Day is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, Chinese festivities in America. - Excerpt “From A Chinese City” by Gontran De Poncins, courtesy Marysville City Library.