The Emperor Norton Trust

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

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Filtering by Tag: Frank Soulé

Joshua Norton in Occidental Lodge No. 22 of Free and Accepted Masons

Popular accounts of Emperor Norton — including the respected 1986 biography by William Drury — have Joshua Norton as a “charter member” of Occidental Lodge No. 22 of Free and Accepted Masons.

This is inaccurate. It also is not the point.

For what bears real consideration is that Joshua sought and was granted membership in the Occidental Lodge between May 1854 and May 1855, the very moment when — at every professional, legal, financial and personal level — he was approaching the depths of his instability, vulnerability and failure.

Also documented here: Two illustrious San Franciscans who were members of the Occidental Lodge at the same time that Joshua Norton was.

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Joshua Norton at the Rassette House

Starting sometime between summer 1864 and summer 1865, Emperor Norton occupied a sparsely furnished 9-by-6-foot room on the top floor of a 50-cent-per-night three-story boarding house known as the Eureka Lodgings. A little more than a decade earlier, the pre-imperial Joshua Norton enjoyed accommodation in one of the best hotels in San Francisco. What's surprising is that the difference between the daily rates of the two places appears to have been only about 50 cents.

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