・・・
あれからしばらくの間、黒石の近江商人の末裔について調べています。
その後、数件の末裔のお宅が見つかっています。これから先順次紹介します。
まず、今回は琵琶湖東岸の彦根市から貞享年間に黒石へやってきました。
西暦で行くと1680年以降という事になります。屋号は沢屋で、
当初は彦根で蓄財した金で下山形村の田地を買い集め、元禄四年に
当時温湯にあった黄檗宗の寺を開基し後に法眼寺として開基に尽力した。
この後石名坂に転居し、寛延年間に黒石城下の元町へ移転し酒蔵となる。
この時の酒の銘柄は「赤鬼」で唄にもうたわれる程人気となったと言う。
幕末の黒石藩の窮乏の時はかなりの富豪だったようで1750俵の米を融通した。
現在、黒石市内町にある「金平成園」の造営は明治年間に行われたもので
当時の加藤宇兵衛は国会議員を務めていた。(黒石市史・通史編Ⅰより)
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For a while since then, I have been researching the descendants
 of Kuroishi's Omi merchants.
Since then, I have found several descendant homes. 
I will introduce them one by one.
First, this time, they came to Kuroishi from Hikone City
 on the eastern shore of Lake-Biwa during the Teikyou era.
In the Gregorian calendar, that would be after 1680. 
Their family name was Sawaya, and they initially used the money
 they had saved in Hikone to buy up farmland in Shimoyamagata Village.
In 1691, they founded an Obaku-sect temple in Nuruyu,
 which later became Hogenji, and they worked hard to establish it.
After this, they moved to Ishinazaka, and during the Kanen era,
 they moved to Motomachi, below Kuroishi Castle, and became a sake brewery.
The brand of sake they brewed at that time was "Aka-Oni,"
 and it is said to have become so popular that it was even sung about in song.
They were apparently quite wealthy during the poverty
 of the Kuroishi domain at the end of the Edo period,
 and they provided 1,750 bales of rice.
The construction of the current Kanehiranari-Garden in Uchimachi, Kuroishi City,
 was carried out during the Meiji era, when Kato-Uhei was a member of the Diet.
 (From Kuroishi City History, General History, Volume I)
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