The Emperor Norton Trust

TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Filtering by Category: Places,Tributes

Emperor Norton Does Art Criticism With a Borrowed Jackknife — And the Crowd Loves It

By 1861 — and for the 18-plus-year remainder of his reign — Emperor Norton was a favorite and enduring subject for San Francisco cartoonists and theater troupes, who found that local audiences enjoyed the good-natured lampooning of their Emperor.

The Emperor himself was less amused — and, there are a couple of oft-cited examples of the Emperor’s expressing his royal displeasure over how he was portrayed in these contexts.

Recently, we uncovered an “episode of displeasure” that is even better documented than the familiar examples.

The occasion was the mounting of an advertisement using Emperor Norton’s image on a construction fence at Montgomery and California Streets. The Emperor borrowed a jackknife; cut out the image of himself; and sliced the image to shreds.

The crowd, as they say, “went wild.”

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Joshua Norton, Eternal Optimist

Between 1853 and 1859 — a period during which the courts handed him a series of crushing legal defeats that ultimately forced him to declare bankruptcy in 1856 — Joshua Norton engaged in a pattern of making bold public moves that belied — and defied — the harsh facts on the ground.

We recently discovered two early markers in this pattern that appear to have gone undocumented before now:

1) In August 1853 — on the eve of his first major court loss — Joshua offered himself as a Whig candidate for California State Assembly.

2) Under the terms of the Fourth District Court’s ruling of August 1853, the Court ordered the San Francisco sheriff to seize and sell two of Joshua Norton’s properties. In November 1853 — three days before the sale — Joshua took out a newspaper ad seeking a loan for $7,500, possibly part of a gambit to buy back the properties.

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A Tale of Two Storeships

For some eight decades, maybe more, the story has circulated in Emperor Norton biographies and in Nortonland more broadly that Joshua Norton owned the Genessee — the storeship that “received” the hundred tons of rice that Joshua’s firm bought off a ship in San Francisco Bay in December 1852.

According to this story, the Genessee was a major asset of Joshua Norton & Co., with the firm using the storeship as a warehouse and doing a brisk business in renting out space in the ship to other merchants.

In fact, the only contemporaneous documentation of a connection between Joshua Norton and the Genessee makes it very clear that Joshua was the renter. He did not own the Genessee — he simply rented warehouse space there, as many other traders and merchants did.

However, we recently uncovered a previously undocumented newspaper ad which suggests that — more than two years earlier, in August 1850 — Joshua Norton did lease space in a different storeship, the Orator, with the intention of sub-leasing this space to others.

Read on for documentation of the original arrivals of the Genessee and the Orator in San Francisco — of when these cargo / passenger ships were sold and converted into storeships — of how Joshua Norton’s path intersected with the Genessee and the Orator — and of these ships’ later fates.

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The Genesis of the Second "Joshua Norton & Co." of San Francisco

Conventional wisdom holds that, when Joshua Norton arrived in San Francisco, he immediately found a business partner and established Joshua Norton & Co. — and that this firm operated continuously until the legal and financial fallout from Joshua’s prolonged rice contract dispute left him deserted and on his own.

But, a close reading of the newspaper record indicates that, during his first 3½ years in San Francisco, Joshua Norton alternated between periods of working with a partner (“& Co.”) and working as a sole proprietor — and that there were three distinct business partnerships that operated under the name “Joshua Norton & Co.”

The primary 20th-century biographers of Emperor Norton identify Joshua’s first business partner as Peter Robertson. But, our recent discovery of details that apparently were missed by these authors suggests that Joshua and Peter did not meet until nearly a year into Joshua’s San Francisco sojourn — and that they met at a time when the “original” Joshua Norton & Co. already had disappeared from view and Joshua was once again working solo.

The circumstantial evidence points to Peter Robertson as the partner in the second Joshua Norton & Co — not the first.

Read on for the full story.

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Joshua Norton's First Public Moves in San Francisco Appear to Support His Claim of a November 1849 Arrival

Emperor Norton claimed to have arrived in San Francisco in November 1849, on a ship from Rio de Janeiro.

After the Emperor’s death, Theodor Kirchhoff — a friend of the Emperor’s who was a German poet and essayist — supplied a name for the ship: the Franzeska. (Actually, Kirchhoff said “Franzika” — but, that’s a small point.)

All of the Emperor’s major and minor 20th-century biographers ran with this narrative — even though it never has been independently documented.

Norton's San Francisco arrival narrative remains undocumented — BUT...

Here, we present our discovery of two previously unreported episodes from Joshua Norton’s first several months in San Francisco that appear to support his claim to have arrived in San Francisco in November 1849 — even if they don’t put him on the Franzeska:

  • Norton’s paid notice of a temporary business address in early May 1850, a few weeks before he arrived at what usually is regarded as his first recorded business address, and — even earlier —

  • what may be Norton’s signature on a February 1850 open letter published in the Daily Alta newspaper.

Joshua’s signature on the open letter would make this letter the earliest known newspaper reference to Joshua Norton in San Francisco.

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Joshua Norton at the Merchants' Exchange

The period between October 1854 and June 1855 has been an underexplored moment in the Joshua Norton story. But, it's a moment that found Joshua at his steeliest.  

He had no choice, really. In October 1854, the California Supreme Court ruled against Joshua in his rice appeal. Foreclosures on his real estate interests were immediate. But, he knew that it was only a matter of time before the Court lowered the heaviest boom — which the Court did when, in May 1855, it ordered Joshua to pay the plaintiffs $20,000.

And yet, during this most precarious of 8 months: Joshua Norton attached himself to the most prestigious new business address in the city. And, he found friends to help him stay afloat and, in one case, to take a crack at launching a major civic infrastructure project — not a bridge, but at the time even more necessary — that the state legislature would not catch up to authorizing for another 5 years.

This is not a man who was going down without a fight.

Read on for a deep-dive into a previously unreported key episode that foreshadowed the Survivor-Emperor to come.

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Joshua Norton, Pioneer

In Colville’s San Francisco directory of 1856, Joshua Norton listed his “office” address as Pioneer Hall — the Society of California Pioneers’ headquarters and clubhouse on Portsmouth Square, San Francisco.

Joshua declared bankruptcy in 1856, so his living arrangements might have been unstable. But, he was affiliated with a Masonic lodge during this period — while he was not a member of the Pioneers.

So why did he list himself at Pioneer Hall rather than Masonic Hall (on Montgomery Street)?

Here’s a closer look at this episode, in which — apparently — Joshua Norton and the Pioneers were drawn into one anothers’ orbits and revealed things about one another in the process.

Includes a rarely seen 1861 photograph of Pioneer Hall after the Society had added “Pioneers” signage to the top of the building.

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The Ferry Building Clock Tower from Emperor Norton's Street

The best-known vista of the 245-foot-tall clock tower of the San Francisco Ferry Building is from along Market Street, looking northeast.

The best-known street vista — but not the only one.

The clock tower also rises as the eastern visual terminus of Commercial Street.

On today’s Commercial Street, the tower is most readily seen from the 2-block stretch between Montgomery Street to the east and Grant Avenue to the west. This is the stretch adjacent to, and near, the former site of 624 Commercial between Montgomery and Kearny Streets — where Emperor Norton lived from 1864/65 until his death in 1880.

The view of the Ferry Building clock tower from here is one reason why The Emperor Norton Trust has proposal that the tower be named Emperor Norton Tower. You can read our proposal and commentaries by clicking the Learn More button at EmperorNortonTower.org.

Click through for a series of seven views of the clock tower photographed from the 7-block stretch of Commercial Street between Drumm Street and Grant Avenue during the first half of the tower’s 125-year life-so-far — the period between c.1900 and 1960.

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The Pantheonic Statuette of Norton I

It’s well known that souvenir photographs and lithographs of Emperor Norton were sold in San Francisco shops during the Emperor’s lifetime.

Norton biographer William Drury takes it considerably further to claim that, by the early 1870s, there was a whole cottage industry of “Emperor Norton statuettes, Emperor Norton dolls, Emperor Norton mugs and jugs, Emperor Norton Imperial Cigars” — and even that there were peddlers hawking Emperor Norton merch at his funeral.

I find no evidence to support much of what Drury asserts — but…

In 1877 — a couple of years before Emperor Norton died in 1880 — a German immigrant jeweler and sculptor in San Francisco created a highly accomplished statuette of the Emperor that deserves a much closer look than it has received.

Although there is no ready evidence that this nearly-two-foot-tall statuette was sold in shops, there is evidence to suggest that it was a fixture in San Francisco saloons — and even that the Emperor himself had a copy in his apartment.

Among other things, I document here the three known copies of the statuette and offer a glimpse into the life and work of the sculptor.

There even are cameo appearances from historians of Ancient Rome and the Oxford English Dictionary.

It’s a fascinating story, previously untold.

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Emperor Norton as an Artist’s Model

Addie Ballou is best known now — where she is known at all — as a women’s suffrage crusader, a rather bad poet, and a (probably overconfident) lecturer on any of the subjects she was game to talk about for an hour to any group who asked, provided they had a room and a podium.

But, Ballou also had a brief career as a minimally trained portrait artist.

A certain conventional wisdom holds that, in 1877, Emperor Norton sat for a portrait painted by Ballou — and that this is the only such portrait the Emperor ever sat for during his lifetime.

As ever with Emperor Norton, though, a look under the hood reveals that things probably are not quite as we’ve been led to believe.

Read on for some newly uncovered details about old art associations.

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The Time Emperor Norton Was a "Pepper" Too

On Christmas Eve 1862, at the Royal Polytechnic Institute, in London, the Institute’s director, John Henry Pepper, debuted his theatrical refinement of a reflection illusion that came to be known as “Pepper’s ghost.”

The sensation had made it to the United States by the early 1870s — probably initially being performed as a sideshow attraction.

But, on the evening of 26 December 1879, the resident company of the Metropolitan Theater in Sacramento, Calif., used what they called “the Pepper Mystery” to dramatize the Emperor Norton.

It was a commonplace in the 1860s and ‘70s for theater troupes in San Francisco and elsewhere in California to burlesque the Emperor for laughs. But, it seems as though this performance might have been a little different.

Did members of the audience at the Metropolitan all slap their knees at the sight of an ethereal Emperor Norton on the stage? Or did some shed a quiet tear for the passing of an era that too quickly was slipping through their fingers?

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How to Make the "Emperor Norton Place" Street-Naming Proposal Better

If one wished to honor Emperor Norton with a street name in San Francisco, the 600 block of Commercial Street would not necessarily be the most fruitful option — notwithstanding the fact that the 600 block of Commercial is where the Emperor laid his head for the last 14 or 15 years of his life.

But, the 600 block of Commercial is what the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has put on the table. Indeed, on Tuesday 11 April, the Supes are set to vote on a resolution to add “Emperor Norton Place” as a commemorative name for this block.

Comes a couple of questions:

  • At the level of both poetry and design, is “Emperor Norton Place” really the best name? What about “Emperor Norton Way”?

  • How about adding to the Commercial Street resolution a clause (not currently included) that explicitly requests signage — as the Supervisors’ resolution for “Tony Bennett Way” did in 2017?

Here are some suggestions for how to make a good proposal much better.

Details for submitting public comment in advance of the April 11th meeting are at the bottom of this commentary.

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The Sporting Emperor Norton

Emperor Norton tried his hand at riding a bike — roller skating — even jumping rope.

Later, the Emperor was a regular attendee at everything from horse races to endurance walking marathons to wrestling tournaments.

Here’s a first effort at documenting an underappreciated “sporting” thread in the Emperor’s story.

This includes:

  • many new details about known episodes (velocipede; skating), 1869–72

  • several new episodes, 1873–79

Also includes documentation of what may be the last reported sighting of Emperor Norton.

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Did the Social Drinker Emperor Norton Close Out as a Teetotaler?

By reputation, Emperor Norton did not drink much. But, he did enjoy the occasional tipple — especially if he was being treated, perhaps by a well-wisher at one of the free-lunch taverns that he often frequented.

Indeed, the Emperor issued at least one Proclamation, in 1874, that called for abstaining from "ardent spirits, as a beverage, except only for medical purposes," and that banned the manufacture, import and sale of these spirits” — but that drew a careful distinction between “ardent” liquor and “malt liquors for the working man, and ‘wine for the stomach’s sake.’”

But, in January 1879, with the temperance movement growing ever more insistent on complete abstinence, with no exceptions or carve-outs, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Emperor Norton signed an abstinence pledge.

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The "Eyes of the Emperor" in 1879

The Emperor Norton Trust previously has documented 16 Proclamations of Emperor Norton on various aspects of “the Chinese question” — the latest being published in April 1878, just 2½ weeks before the Emperor’s highly publicized sand-lot encounter that month with the anti-Chinese demagogue Denis Kearney.

But, we’ve discovered three new pieces of evidence, from 1879, indicating that — for nearly 2 years after his encounter with Kearny, and right up until his death in 1880 — the Emperor continued to make good on his 1873 pledge and warning that “the eyes of the Emperor will be upon anyone who shall council [sic] any outrage or wrong on the Chinese” [emphasis in the original].

This evidence includes:

  • a second encounter between Emperor Norton and Denis Kearny, in January 1879, in which Kearney snarkily addressed the Emperor from his sand-lot platform;

  • an anti-Kearney public comment by the Emperor on the same day, at one of the freethinking, reform-minded discussion forums he regularly attended — a discovery that provides an opportunity to add a pin to the Trust’s interactive Emperor Norton Map of the World; and

  • a September 1879 editorial comment in the Sacramento Daily Bee, bearing witness to the Emperor’s ongoing reputation as what the Bee disparagingly called “Protector of China”

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Emperor Norton at Swimley's

Joshua Norton made many visits to Sacramento in the early 1850s.

But, after declaring himself Emperor in 1859, his first imperial visit to California’s capital was in December 1863.

By 1863, Emperor Norton already was becoming a legend.

And, on this 1863 visit, he is reported to have dined at a restaurant run by someone who was becoming a legend of his own.

The restaurant was the Cincinnati. The proprietor was William Swimley. And the eatery — known locally as “Swimley’s” — was half-way through a 20-year run as “oldest, neatest, best and cheapest” food spot in Sacramento.

The building where Swimley’s was located from c.1861 until its closing in 1871 occupies a fascinating place in the history of early Sacramento.

In the course of researching this wonderful story, we’ve found evidence that the building is older than has been believed.

Deep documentation and rare photographs included.

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Lewis Wharf, Boston's Gateway to Joshua Norton's New World

When Joshua Norton arrived in Boston on 12 March 1846, the packet ship Sunbeam that had carried him from Liverpool docked at Lewis Wharf.

Probably the first structure that Joshua saw when he stepped off the ship was the wharf's market building — an impressive, long, 4-plus-story gabled edifice of timber and local Quincy granite that had been built ten years earlier, in 1836.

Although no longer being put to the same uses that it was in the 1830s and '40s, that signature building still stands on Lewis Wharf — and perhaps is the only non-California place in the United States that the once and future Emperor is documented to have passed through.

Read on for a brief but richly illustrated history of Lewis Wharf and its signature building — including the wharf's deep ties to one of the most legendary figures in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States of which Joshua Norton declared himself Emperor.  

Plenty of documentary goodies here: Engravings, photographs, plans, maps and newspaper clippings from 1772 to the present.

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