Townsend Harris (October 4, 1804 – February 25, 1878) was an American merchant and politician who served as the first United States Consul General to Japan. He negotiated the "Harris Treaty" between the US and Japan and is credited as the diplomat who first opened Shogunate Japan to foreign trade and culture in the Edo period. He was portrayed by John Wayne in the 1958 historical adventure drama film The Barbarian and the Geisha. In New York Harris was born in the village of Sandy Hill (now Hudson Falls), in Washington County in upstate New York. He moved early to New York City, where he became a successful merchant and importer from China. In 1846 Harris joined the New York City Board of Education, serving as its president until 1848. He was an avid and critical reader and also taught himself French, Italian and Spanish. He founded the Free Academy of the City of New York, which later became the City College of New York, to provide education to the city's working people. A city high school bearing Harris's name, Townsend Harris High School, soon emerged as a separate entity out of the Free Academy's secondary-level curriculum; the school survived until 1942 when Fiorello La Guardia closed it because of budget constraints. Townsend Harris High School was re-created in 1984 as a public magnet school for the humanities. Harris Treaty of 1856 with Siam Harris, though anxious to get to his new post in Japan, went first to Bangkok, to update the 1833 Roberts Treaty. In his formal audience with the English-speaking and Western-oriented Second King, Phra Pin Klao, Harris stated America's position:The United States does not hold any possessions in the East, nor does it desire any. The form of government forbids the holding of colonies. The United States, therefore, cannot be an object of jealousy to any Eastern Power. Peaceful commercial relations, which give as well as receive benefits, is what the President wishes to establish with Siam, and such is the object of my mission. Finalization of the Bowring Treaty of 1855 delayed Harris for about a month, but he had only to negotiate minor points to transform it into the Harris Treaty of 1856. Re-designated the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, the amendments granted Americans extraterritorial rights in addition to those in the Roberts Treaty. American missionary Stephen Mattoon, who had acted as translator, was