The "Emperor Norton" Trees of Mariposa and Calaveras
A Rarely Seen Eadweard Muybridge Stereograph Raises As Many Questions As It Answers
SOME YEARS AGO, I happened upon a lengthy newspaper article — from the 1890s, if memory serves — with a list of honorarily named California redwoods. One of the trees carried the name “Emperor Norton” — so, I made a mental note and resolved to return to this “detective ground” in the future.
Recently, I was delighted to find photographic evidence of an “Emperor Norton” tree — complete with an “Emperor Norton” sign to prove the point — courtesy of the following stereocard by Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904).
Click on the image to open a zoomable full-resolution version.
Stereocard of “Emperor Norton” tree, by Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904), 1868. Zelda Mackay Collection of Stereographic Views, ca. 1860-ca. 1900, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. Dated by the Bancroft. Source: Bancroft Library
The absence of printed studio address, series, and copyright information suggests that this stereograph remained unpublished. But, the multiple inscriptions of Muybridge’s nom de photog “Helios” along the bottom of the images help to authenticate the authorship of the work:
The stereocard is in the collection of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. The Bancroft’s full catalog title for the card reads [emphasis mine]:
Mammoth Tree Grove [Man, with hat in hand, bowing to a small tree with sign naming it the Emperor Norton Tree. Probably in the Mariposa Grove, near Yosemite Valley, California]. 1868.
That word “Probably” speaks to an element of uncertainty in confirming the details of this stereocard. The uncertainty is warranted, for a couple of reasons.
For starters: Eadweard Muybridge made two photographic tours of Yosemite — in 1867 and in 1872 — and both tours included photographs of redwoods. (Details of these tours are wonderfully summarized in the article “Eadweard Muybridge’s Yosemite Valley Photographs, 1867–1872,” in the March 1963 number of The California Historical Society Quarterly, accessible via the Internet Archive here.)
Muybridge’s 1867 tour of Calaveras County opened in spring 1867 with photographs of the area then — and still — known as “Big Trees.” Photographs from this tour were published and marketed in 1868.
His 1872 tour of Mariposa County concluded in late fall 1872 with photographs of the area known as Mariposa Grove.
Further…
Multiple newspaper accounts indicate that BOTH of these Yosemite “groves” had trees that were named after Emperor Norton.
Finally: The word “Mammoth,” in the Bancroft entry, is a generic — it doesn’t refer to the proper name of a particular grove. Contemporaneous accounts use the word “mammoth” to describe the trees in both Calaveras and Mariposa counties.
So, what are we looking at in the Muybridge stereocard? Is this “Emperor Norton” tree in Mariposa, as the title states — or is it in Calaveras? In what year was the stereograph taken?
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Here are four accounts — two each — from the two counties:
MARIPOSA
A 1910 account of an “Emperor Norton” tree in the Mariposa Grove describes it as “fallen.”
Excerpt from B.M. Leitch, Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, 1910, p. 12. Collection of the University of California Libraries. Source: Internet Archive
An earlier account, from 1883, indicates that — by 1910 — this “Emperor Norton” tree in Mariposa County already had been down for more than a generation.
Excerpt from “Letter from Aunt Debby Dent: A Description of Her Trip to Yosemite and Big Trees,” San Joaquin Valley Argus, 1 September 1883, p. 1. Source: Newspapers.com
CALAVERAS
An “Emperor Norton” tree rounds out a list of named Calaveras “Big Trees” that was documented in July 1867:
Excerpt from "Trip to the Big Trees” (“No. 8” in an “Editorial Correspondence” series), Stockton Daily Evening Herald, 24 July 1867, p. 2. Source: Newspapers.com
Before moving to the second account of an “Emperor Norton” tree in Calaveras, it’s worth looking at this detail from the Muybridge stereograph. Pay close attention to the sign:
Noticing the word “Jump” beneath the name “Emperor Norton,” I initially wondered whether this might be a secondary tribute to Edward Jump (1832–1883), the artist who lived in San Francisco in the 1860s — and whose cartoons often featured the Emperor.
According to the following item from 1870, it was Jump himself who suggested the name for the tree.
Excerpt from article, “The Mammoth Grove of Calaveras,” Waltham (Mass.) Sentinel, 13 May 1870, p. 1. Source: Genealogy Bank
The Emperor Norton. This stands about 100 feet in height, and was named by Jump the Caricarurist. It is very apropos. The features of the tree are similar to the Emperor’s, even to the chapparral on the nose.
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WHAT DOES LINE UP rather nicely:
1
Edward Jump lived in San Francisco in the 1860s — was known for his many depictions of Emperor Norton — and left San Francisco in 1866.
2
Eadweard Muybridge photographed “Big Trees” in Calaveras in spring 1867.
3
There is documentation of an “Emperor Norton” tree with a Jump connection in Calaveras by spring 1870 — two years before Muybridge photographed trees in Mariposa in 1872.
The evidence strongly suggests that Big Trees, Calaveras County — not Mariposa Grove — is the site where Eadweard Muybridge took the stereograph on the card in the Bancroft Collection.
The stereograph may have been developed and the card itself produced in 1868. But, Muybridge will have taken the stereograph in spring 1867. This was two years before Muybridge took the famous stereograph of Emperor Norton astride a velocipede in March 1869.
The timing opens up the possibility that the “Emperor Norton” tree and Muybridge’s stereograph of it was a point of conversation between Muybridge and the Emperor.
Did Emperor Norton ever visit his tree in Calaveras? If so, he might have been none too pleased about the association with Edward Jump, as, apparently, it was one of Jump’s cartoons of him — the one showing the Emperor with Bummer and Lazarus at a free-lunch table — that raised his indignation to the point that he tried to smash the shop window where the cartoon was being displayed.
And, what of the mysterious man in the stereograph — hat removed; arms and legs wide; and deeply bowing to the tree? Is this one of Muybridge’s assistants? Or might it be Muybridge himself?
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UPDATE — 20 September 2024
My original article above includes two references to the “Emperor Norton” tree at Big Trees, Calaveras County — the tree which features in the 1867 stereograph by Eadweard Muybridge.
One of the references is from 1870. An earlier reference is in a list included as part of an “Editorial Correspondence” from “W.B.” to the Stockton Daily Evening Herald. This letter is dated 17 July 1867 and was published in the Herald of July 24th.
This week, I came across an additional 1867 reference from exactly the same time frame. The following is an excerpt of a letter from a “Special Travelling Correspondent of the Alta.” The letter, dated 16 July 1867 and signed “Hagar,” was published on the front page of the Daily Alta of July 29 under the title “In the Wilderness.”
The proximity of these two accounts suggests that the two correspondents might have been part of the same exploration party.
In the copy of the text beneath the image, I’ve placed the Emperor Norton passage in bold:
Excerpt from "In the Wilderness," letter of special correspondent "Hagar," Daily Alta California, 29 July 1867, p. 1. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
Were I the owner of the Mammoth Grove, there should not be a solitary name of any living man emblazoned in gilt letters on a marble slab and nailed to one of these trees. It is all well enough to write a man's history, eulogize his name, and to perpetuate the memory of himself and his noble works after his death. But live men are not to be trusted, not one of them. The best of them will do a god-like deed today, and counteract it all by a fiendish act tomorrow. Human nature in some of its phases is incomprehensible, to me at least, even after my scores and scores of years in contact with it.
I am obliged to mention some of these monuments of living men for a particular purpose. On the upper path, and but a short distance from the gate leading into the Grove, stands General Grant, a very beautiful tree. J.B. McPherson stands but a short distance to the right of Grant. Between these two, and but a short distance from either of them, is the relic of a tree — a thing that has once been a tree, but now it is limbless, scarred, bruised and burned until it has just sufficient backbone left to enable it to stand in a strained and crooked position. It is a poor, forsaken-looking thing, wretched, wan and so frail, it would not crush the smallest creeping thing should it chance to fall through the force of some playful breeze — and this thing is named Jeff Davis.
Emperor Norton is a tree of ordinary size with limbs hanging down in the form of a weeping willow, and it is covered with huge knobs, as knots, all the way from the ground to the top. It is the general opinion that this, Jeff Davis, and
THE OLD MAID
Are three of the most appropriately named of all the christened trees in Mammoth Grove. This ancient maiden stands on a hill side, quite deserted by all of her kindred. The old bachelor is the nearest object to her, and he stands off at considerable distance.
She is fallen, fell unmolested, and was crushed in her fall. No arm — not even a limb of either an ancient or a youthful tree — was outstretched to save her. She is fallen, and towards the old bachelor. All there is left of this departed beauty and pride is a stump perhaps 40 or 50 feet high. This is covered with strings of bark, which trickle down the sides like tears, and the whole appearance of the relict of the tree is that of dejection. But when all is said this is the picture of but one class of old maids and a most pitiable one. It is purely a one-sided representation; and, were I the owner of millions, I would stake the last cent in my possession that some miserable, unendurable old bachelor who has not nor never had either the good looks or good fortune to captivate some pretty girl named named this tree. I am sure this is the case.
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