Seito Saibara
Seito Saibara (b. 1861, Kochi Japan; d. 1939, Webster) was an agriculturist, lawyer, university president, and member of the Japanese Parliament. Saibara arrived in Hartford Connecticut in 1901 to study theology and teach Japanese about Christianity but in 1903, the Houston Chamber of Commerce invited him to the area to advise farmers on rice cultivation. He arrived in Webster with his family and thirty colonists, established the first Japanese Christian colony in Texas, and planted Japanese strains of rice with higher yields than American rice.