Charles A. Murdock, Second and Last Printer to Norton I: A Photo Gallery
Charles Albert Murdock (1841–1928) was a lifelong Unitarian.
It was at San Francisco’s First Unitarian Church, sometime after Charles Murdock’s arrival in San Francisco in 1864 — the same year that saw the death of the church’s most illustrious minister, Thomas Starr King — that Murdock met and befriended Emperor Norton.
Out of this friendship, Charles A. Murdock & Co. became the second printer of Emperor Norton’s promissory notes, an office that Murdock held for two years, from January 1878 until the Emperor’s death in January 1880.
Murdock’s signature wide-format notes for Emperor Norton call to mind a large version of today’s business checks.
Bond of The Imperial Government of Norton I, made by Charles A. Murdock & Co. and signed by Emperor Norton on 20 November 1879. Collection of the Wells Fargo History Museum / San Francisco. Source: Groove Central LA
The first — and, it appears, only other — printer of Emperor Norton’s notes was the firm of John Cuddy and Edward C. Hughes. Cuddy & Hughes printed a range of differently designed and denominated notes for the Emperor from 1870 through 1875, producing enough stock to last Emperor Norton through late 1877.
To learn much more about these two firms and their roles in Emperor Norton’s story, see my May 2017 article here. For a deeper dive into the episode that brought the Emperor’s relationship with Cuddy & Hughes to a premature end, see my January 2019 article here.
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As to Charles Murdock…
Murdock got into the printing business in 1867. Over the next few decades, he became one of the most respected fine printers in San Francisco.
When the earthquake of April 1906 struck, Murdock’s Clay Street printing office — on a site adjacent to were the southeastern “leg” of the Transamerica pyramid now hits the ground — was leveled. Alas, Murdock had just bought most of the remaining shares of the business from his partner — so, he was not in the best position, financially, to absorb the shock.
In the wake of 1906, Murdock sold the majority of his printing enterprise and retired from the business in 1914.
To focus too much on Murdock the printer, though, is to miss that Charles Murdock was a person of wide literary, historical, philanthropic and civic interests and influence.
Among other things, Murdock served a term in the California Assembly from 1883 to 1885 and was on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1907 to 1916.
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There aren’t many photographs of Charles Murdock about.
Here are four rarely seen photos of Murdock — the Emp’s printer and good friend.
This is an undated photo of Murdock at his print shop — so, no later than 1914.
Here’s Murdock c.1913, from the period when he was on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Charles A. Murdock, c.1913. Collection of the San Francisco Public Library. Source: Steven Short/KALW.
Murdock on the right, a couple of years later.
Charles A. Murdock (right) with George Gallagher (left) and Joseph J. Phillips., c.1915. In one of two scrapbook albums, titled “Album of San Francisco,” by Hamilton Henry Dobbin (1856–1930). Collection of the California State Library. Source: Calisphere.
This is Murdock in 1921. The photo was the frontispiece of A Backward Glance at Eighty, a memorial volume of Murdocks’s earlier personal essays conceived and funded by the Pacific Coast Conference of Unitarian Churches, then published in a limited edition of 250 by Paul Elder & Company.
Charles A. Murdock, 1921. Frontispiece of A Backward Glance at Eighty (Paul Elder & Company, 1921). Source: Project Gutenberg.
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