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Miss Tochigi is by the artist Takizawa Kōryūsai II. Her personal name is Nikko Sachiko and her kimono crest is the maru ni migi gai matsu (encircle triple pine).
Miss Tochigi is, unfortunately, one of our missing dolls, but records indicate that she was originally assigned to the State Historical Museum in Charleston, West Virginia. From newspaper articles, we also know that prior to her placement in 1928 she was touring throughout the southeast in the company of Miss Ibaraki with stops in South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, and Mississippi.
The only known image of Miss Tochigi after her placement in Charleston comes to us at a surprisingly late date. In November of 1957, the Charleston Children’s Museum sponsored an exhibition entitled: “Learn About Asia.” Its chosen focus was the country of Japan, and amidst objects drawn from the collection and borrowed from local residents was Charleston’s Friendship Doll. A photograph in one newspaper account shows Miss Tochigi standing on a platform in apparently good condition, while a young girl poses in front holding the doll’s parasol. The article indicates that Miss Tochigi had been transferred from the West Virginia Department of Archives and History to the Children’s Museum after its opening in 1950. The Children’s Museum itself was housed on the third floor of the Kanawha Public Library and was largely funded through the efforts of the Charleston Junior League.
Though 1957 is tantalizingly recent, no further information about Miss Tochigi has surfaced.
Through archival images, however, the Charleston, West Virginia doll has been identified as the original Miss Ibaraki and the doll known as “Miss Ibaraki” housed in the Public Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the original Miss Tochigi.