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

In the Fall of 1850, Joshua Norton Shared the Same Business Address with a Future Business Partner Who Often Has Prominent Cameos in Accounts of Norton.

This May Harbor a Clue as to How the Two Met.

IN FACT, Joshua Norton may have given his name to as many as three different San Francisco firms that bore the name “Joshua Norton & Co.” But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The conventional wisdom is that, from the time he arrived in San Francisco, probably in late 1849, until his ill-fated rice gambit of December 1852, Joshua Norton charted the upward trajectory of someone who had the Midas touch.

In this version of the Norton story, Joshua rented an office, found a business partner, and established Joshua Norton & Co. more or less immediately after arriving in San Francisco — and this “Co.” operated continuously until sometime in mid to late 1853, when the legal and financial fallout from Joshua’s prolonged rice contract dispute with the firm of Ruiz, Hermanos left him deserted and alone.

But, a close read of Joshua's appearances in the local papers suggests that his first 3½ years in San Francisco, 1850–53, saw plenty of trial and error: Locations, re-locations, and re-re-locations. Picking up and putting down at least two, maybe three different business partners.

For entrepreneurs trying to find, and keep, their footing in 1850s San Francisco, this situational, “whatever works in the moment” approach to doing business — which could be marked by a series of business partnerships lasting a year or less, the only constant being the name at the top — was not uncommon.

Newspaper ads for “Joshua Norton & Co.” indicate the presence of a business partner. Between 1850 and 1853, there are three distinct moments in which such ads appear.

These moments alternate with other moments in which Joshua advertises himself as “Joshua Norton,” i.e., as a sole proprietor.

This suggests that the three “Joshua Norton & Co.” moments refer to three different partners and three different partnerships — each with its own beginning, middle, and end.

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RECENTLY, we saw that, in Joshua Norton’s first known business ad in San Francisco, published on 6 May 1850 — some six months after his arrival — Joshua signs himself “Joshua Norton, broker.”

Joshua Norton’s ad giving notice that the Payne & Sherwood auction rooms would be his business whereabouts “for a few days,” Daily Pacific News, 6 May 1850, p. 3. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection

Three weeks later, on 29 May 1850, came the first known ad for “Joshua Norton & Co.” — with an office at 242 Montgomery Street, northeast corner of Montgomery and Jackson, an adobe owned by James Lick:

Ad for Joshua Norton & Co. at 242 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, Daily Pacific News, 29 May 1850, p. 2. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection

The following details are unreported — and apparently were missed — by Norton’s previous biographers:

First, a footnote: In the early 1840s, while still living in South Africa, Joshua Norton had a business partnership that operated as Joshua Norton & Co. He may have had one or more other partnerships doing business under this name during the four years between leaving South Africa in late 1845 and arriving in San Francisco in late 1849.

But, the newspaper trail of what — for the purposes of this discussion — I’m calling “the original Joshua Norton & Co.” (May – August 1850 (end date estimated)) at 242 Montgomery goes cold after the end of August 1850.

The next time we see business ads from Joshua is in early October 1850, and he is operating out of the Sansome Street “buildings” of the commodities firm of Cross, Hobson & Co.

Here’s the ad that appeared on 7 October 1850:

Ad for Joshua Norton at "Messrs. Cross, Hobson & Co.'s buildings," San Francisco Daily Evening Picayune, 7 October 1850, p. 1. Source: Genealogy Bank

Here’s the one that ran two days later, on October 9th:

Ad for Joshua Norton at "Cross, Hobson’s Buildings," San Francisco Daily Evening Picayune, 9 October 1850, p. 3. Source: Genealogy Bank

And here’s the listing for Cross, Hobson & Co. that appeared in Kimball’s San Francisco directory for 1850:

Listing for Cross, Hobson & Co., Kimball's San Francisco Directory, 1850, p. 32. Collection of the San Francisco Public Library. Source: Internet Archive

It’s possible that Joshua’s move to the Cross, Hobson space — a move that appears to have been temporary — was occasioned by the fourth great fire of San Francisco, which took place on 17 September 1850. Indeed, when legendary pioneer saloonkeepers Theodore Augustus Barry (1825-1881) and Benjamin Ada Patten (1825-1877) a.k.a. "Barry & Patten" published their memoir Men and Memories of San Francisco in the 'Spring of '50' in 1873, they remembered that Cross, Hobson's own move to “the large corrugated-iron warehouse on Sansome street, between Jackson and Pacific” was prompted by the fire (see memoir excerpt here).

Note that the ads are from “Joshua Norton.” This suggests that the “original” Joshua Norton & Co. partnership had been dissolved by October 1850 and that Joshua was back on his own. Joshua’s rendering of his location as “Cross, Hobson’s buildings“ suggests that he was not working at Cross, Hobson, but rather was renting office space there.

Here’s where it gets interesting…

Both of Norton’s primary 20th-century biographers — Allen Stanley Lane in 1939; William Drury in 1986 — identify Joshua’s first San Francisco business partner as Peter Robertson. We have known about Robertson's business connection to Joshua through the following notice for the dissolution of their partnership that ran in early November 1851.

Notice of dissolution of business partnership of Joshua Norton and Peter Robertson, Daily Alta California, 2 November 1851, p. 4. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection

On the question of how Norton and Robertson got together, Lane writes that, upon arriving in San Francisco, Joshua “promptly rented an office [at] 242 Montgomery,” going on to say: “Before long he formed a partnership with another merchant, Peter Robertson.”

Drury agrees with Lane that Norton’s “acquisition” of 242 Montgomery as an address and Peter Robertson as a partner was part of Joshua’s arrival narrative. But, he flips the order, writing that “Robertson, a young shipping clerk…agreed to join [Joshua] as the junior partner of Joshua Norton and Company” — and claiming that Norton and Robertson found and rented the office in James Lick’s adobe together.

Given the vagueness of these accounts, my bet is that Drury and Lane had only the dissolution notice of November 1851 to go on — and that, finding no evidence (like a name) that Joshua Norton had any earlier San Francisco business partner, they simply “plugged in” Peter Robertson at the front end of Joshua’s San Francisco story.

Here’s a good reason why this is wrong:

The same San Francisco directory of 1850 that listed Cross, Hobson & Co. also listed Peter Robertson working there as a clerk:

Listing for Joshua Norton's future business partner Peter Robertson as a clerk at Cross, Hobson & Co., Kimball's San Francisco Directory, 1850, p. 95. Collection of the San Francisco Public Library. Source: Internet Archive

Charles Kimball’s 1850 directory was published in September 1850, a month before Joshua Norton, sole proprietor — not "Joshua Norton & Co." — ran ads listing a Cross, Hobson address.

Perhaps Joshua Norton’s brief October 1850 sojourn in “Cross, Hobson’s Buildings” at the time that Peter Robertson was working there is what provided the opportunity for Joshua and Peter to meet — and the impetus for them to join forces.

This would suggest that Peter did not come into Joshua’s orbit until nearly a year after Joshua arrived in San Francisco — rather than (serendipitously) right away, as Messrs. Drury and Lane would have us believe.

Of course, one can imagine other scenarios.

But, Ockham’s Razor may argue for early October 1850 as the time when the paths of Joshua Norton and Peter Robertson first crossed — and for the establishment of San Francisco’s second Joshua Norton & Co. (October 1850 (estimated) – November 1851), with Joshua and Peter as partners, sometime shortly thereafter.

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BOTH WILLIAM DRURY and Allen Stanley Lane leaven their “biographies” of Emperor Norton with generous dollops of historical fiction.

In one passage, Drury “explains” the denouement of the Norton–Robertson partnership by imagining the following scene at attorney Hall McAllister’s house:

Bill Sim, an amiable giant from Glasgow...wanted to go into the mercantile business, and Hall McAllister knew just the thing. Joshua Norton happened to be in need of a partner; Peter Robertson, after two years of fires and lynch mobs, was yearning for quieter parts. A meeting was arranged and a deal was made. Robertson relinquished his interest in Joshua Norton & Company to the burly Scot and sailed away.

In fact, as the dissolution notice of November 1851 indicates, Peter Robertson had been in Marysville — not known for “fires and lynch mobs” — for some time.

We don’t know when Robertson arrived in San Francisco. Given the November 1851 date of the dissolution notice, Drury’s claim that Robertson had been in San Francisco for “two years” suggests that Robertson had been in the city since November 1849 — a date that conveniently lines up with Drury’s story that Joshua Norton arrived at exactly the same time!

As to Bill Sim: William Sim was Norton’s partner at the time of the rice affair that began in early 1853 — and, he was named as such in the case of Ruiz, Hermanos v. Joshua Norton & Co.:

Full title of California Supreme Court case Ruiz v. Norton, decided October 1854, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of California, vol. 4, 1856, p. 355. Collection of Harvard University. Source: Google Books

But, newspaper records show that, after the end of his partnership with Peter Robertson in late October 1851, Joshua did not continue as Joshua Norton & Co.

Rather, he reverted to advertising as “Joshua Norton” — sans “Co.” — and, he did so for the next 9 months.

Here’s a “Joshua Norton” ad that ran on 22 July 1852: *

Ad for Joshua Norton, San Francisco Daily Evening Journal, 22 July 1852, p. 3. Source: Genealogy Bank

Not until the end of July 1852 did Joshua “add back” the “Co.” in his ads:

Ad for Joshua Norton & Co., Daily Alta California, 26 July 1852, p. 2. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection

This would seem to confirm that William Sim did not “buy out” Peter Robertson — but that Sim arrived in summer 1852, perhaps in July, as Joshua’s new partner for what would be the third Joshua Norton & Co (July 1852 — mid 1853) in San Francisco.

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THE VERSION of Emperor Norton that largely has held sway over the last couple of generations is the one presented in William Drury’s book, Norton I: Emperor of the United States. One reason for this book’s outsized influence: Far more than any previous Norton biographer, Drury sought to present a Grand Narrative that situated Norton is his historical moment.

But, there’s a catch.

Something that has proved daunting for screenwriters and filmmakers hoping to realize the long-deferred dream of a dramatic feature film or limited series on Norton: There are so many gaps in the historical record that it is difficult to create a narrative that holds together without fabricating many whole episodes — so many as to give the narrative a speculative cast that could rob the story of its power.

Drury “solves” this problem by “going there.” Where the historical record is silent, Drury simply dons his novelist’s cap and — “for the sake of the story” — fills in the blanks with scenarios and connections of his own making.

In the process of tying things up in neat little bows, Drury produces a hybrid that is part biography and part historical fiction — but not wholly either one.

The problem is that Drury never tips his readers as to when he is acting as an historian and when he is acting a novelist. So it is that much of what Drury’s readers have taken to be history are in fact flights of literary fancy.

The truth is more complicated — and often more compelling — than Drury portrays. If Drury had more fully embraced the true job of an historian, he would have left the unanswered questions on the surface rather than sweep the questions under the carpet and pretend they aren’t there — so as to make it easier for those who followed him to pick up the scent.

Indeed, one question pried open by the current exploration is…

If Peter Robertson was not Joshua’s first business partner, then who was?

* Joshua Norton started selling a stock of 296 chests of black tea in early July 1852 and continued to run “Joshua Norton,” i.e,, sole proprietor, ads for this through the end of September 1852 — two months after “Joshua Norton & Co.” ads began appearing in late July 1852. No doubt, this speaks simply to the fact that the commission deal for the tea was with Joshua and not with the partnership. But, after this, “Joshua Norton” business ads don’t appear again until 1855.

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