The Emperor Norton Trust

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

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

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Filtering by Tag: 1871

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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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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Emperor Norton’s Residence, the Eureka Lodgings, Was Not Located (Exactly) Where You Think It Was

Over the last 25 years or so, a consensus has emerged among those attuned to San Francisco history — and particularly among Nortonophiles — that the former site of the Eureka Lodgings — where Emperor Norton is documented to have lived between 1864/1865 and his death in 1880 — is the privately owned public open space (POPOS) known as Empire Park, located at 642 Commercial Street between Montgomery and Kearny Streets.

That's been the consensus.

But, a careful analysis of two key bodies of evidence — (1) photographs of this stretch of Commercial Street taken between 1877 and 1906, and (2) Sanborn fire insurance and official San Francisco block (property) maps from the generation or two before and after the earthquake and fires of 1906 — reveal the Empire Park designation to be mistaken.

The Eureka Lodgings was located on Commercial Street between Montgomery and Kearny — just not on that site.

In the attached deeply researched and documented — and extensively illustrated — article, I provide:

1) Confirmation — for the first time, I believe — of the visual ID of the Eureka Lodgings building, using photographs from during and after Emperor Norton's lifetime. (Don’t miss the fabulous detail in these new hi-res scans from 1878, c.1892–94 and 1906 — worth the price of admission!)

2) A new location for the former site of the Eureka that better accords with the historical record.

It's a deep dive — so, pull up a chair!

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The Emperor of Brooklyn, Part 2

In 2015, we published a piece, “The Emperor of Brooklyn,” about Emperor Norton’s connection to Brooklyn, Calif., an area southeast of Lake Merritt, in Oakland, that was an independent township from 1856 until it was annexed to Oakland in late 1872.

The main documentary evidence for this connection was a couple of Proclamations that were published in the San Francisco-based Pacific Appeal. The Emperor had designated the Appeal his as his “imperial gazette” in December 1870 — and, ultimately, the paper published some 250 of his Proclamations. But, these particular Proclamations were datelined “Brooklyn.”

It turns out that these and other Proclamations were published simultaneously — sometimes originally — in a short-lived Brooklyn weekly called the Brooklyn Home Journal and Alameda County Advertiser.

Read on to learn about this newspaper; exactly where it was located; Emperor Norton’s visits to the paper’s offices; and the respect the paper paid to the Emperor in 1872.

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Emperor Norton at a Pro-Civil Rights Lecture, March 1868

Emperor Norton’s on-point attendance at an early event of the Order of Freedom’s Defenders — a Unionist-Republican political club dedicated to preserving Lincoln's legacy; advancing Reconstruction; electing Grant as President; and securing the Constitutional protections necessary to guarantee the civil rights of African-Americans — can be seen as “of a piece” with the Emperor’s broader commitment to African-American equality.

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